Hotter than…

The gates of hell.  The hinges of hell.  The effing doorframe of hell.  Did I mention it was hot??

But I am getting a new bathroom, and hopefully, tonight it will be the first time I get to shower in it.

Finito!

Yep, it’s done.  Delivered on Thursday this week, Brian’s Tie Vest is a success!  A fun project, and a good way for me to get back into my knitting brain, should there be such a thing.

There were some bumps along the way; the “knot” of the tie was too high for the V-neck shaping, so I ripped out about 10 rows and redid it.  Yes, kids, you too can try this at home.  I mean, seriously.  Where’s the yarn gonna go??

rip back 10 rows, and reknit. piece of pie!

 

Then there was the issue of the V-neck itself; it called for a knitted facing, instead of a standard ribbing.  I did my best and used the live stitches of the facing to sew it as invisibly as possible.  It came out pretty well; the facing is on the left and the tie, as continued up around the neckline, is on the right.

front facing, nicely sewn down!

And our happy recipient, Brian, modeling the finished vest.  I think he likes it quite a lot!

A Happy Brian!

If I were to do this again, I would totally work it in a lighter weight yarn,  per the original specs, and maybe do some finagleing to make the tie a little more refined.  But Brian wanted a wide 70′s style tie,  and this is what he got. 

His birthday is next month; I think I’ll hit the thrift store to see if I can find him a tie tack. 

Some Progress, I Believe…

But the snow continues to harsh my knitting mellow…

We’re having the 3rd snow dump in as many weeks, and frankly, the charm of a snowy winter has worn off already.  It started snowing about 12 hours ago, and the plow guys have been here TWICE for the driveway — $$$.  Ow.  But it beats moving 12 inches by yourself by shoveling.  On a double wide driveway.  Half of which is not ours.   Hate.  Snow.

I got started on Brian’s Vest this last weekend, which I am knitting for endless coffee (well, maybe three or four months worth).  After a few missteps with gauge and what not, we have a quite nice garment slowly taking shape from  a strand of yarn and two needles.   I love knitting — you can just take an idea, your own hard-earned knitting knowledge, some yarn and two sticks and..

MAKE A THING!! 

Here’s the Original from Mon Tricot, circa 1971/72 –

Stylin’ In the Seventies!

Alas, the photo was so murky that I’m really having to guess about the shaping details, although the directions are pretty clear.  My main problem was that I had to change the gauge.  The original was knitted in sport wt. yarn, 6 st/in, and my clone is in worsted at 5st/in.  Thank GOODNESS for the book, “The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns”, which is ‘open-source’ knitting patterns.  Make a swatch, pick a gauge, and knit your own basic vest/sweater/hat/mitt/s gloves/socks/scarves.  It helped me out with changing the gauge and getting the right number of stitches on the needles for Brian’s Vest.   I’m really really REALLY grateful that Brian is a bit under 6 feet tall and with a 38 chest.  There’s nothing more discouraging than committing to a pattern for someone the size of Sasquatch.   ENDLESS endless amounts of knitting…

 

And here’s our progress so far:

 

 

It's a Vest! It's a Tie!

Looking pretty nifty; Brian got to see this much yesterday, and he was allllllllll aquiver!  Work continues at a relaxed pace. 

 

 

 

 

 

Will Knit For Coffee. No, Seriously.

So the one place I go in order to have my federally mandated social contact for the week is The Coffee Shoppe.  This has been my place of choice since it opened in 2002.  It has moved from one building to another, has changed hands a total of three times now, but it still has my coffee.  Sweet, delicious, life-giving coffee.  mmmm. 

Anyway, the new owner is one of the former baristas named Brian.  This is confusing, as one of the other former baristas was also named Brian.  And to make matters worse, Brian and Brian have known each other since grade school, so I just took to calling them Thing One and Thing Two for a while.  They were not offended; au contraire, they liked their nicknames.   But then Brian left and Brian was left behind and now Brian is working at the snooty French restaurant the next town over and Brian is the new owner (along with Duvall) of the Coffee Shoppe.

I assume that’s clear; if not, I suggest you press on. 

So, Coffee Shoppe Brian, as the new owner, had gotten some nice arty books and glossy mags for the patrons to browse.  I went in there about a month ago, and there, laying on the counter with the newspapers, was an issue from 19-freaking-71 of MON TRICOT (a French knitting magazine that was translated and sold in the US from the very very late 60′s to the early 80′s and yes, I have a rather comprehensive collection of them)!  I scooped it up and underneath that was a  pattern book for crocheted doll clothes from the 40′s that was so incredibly freaky/creepy/just plain weird — I scooped that up as well.   I danced over to Brian and offered to pay good US dollars for these items, and he said…

“No, just keep them, I got them at Goodwill.  Oh, but wait a minute, lemme show you something in the knitting magazine.”

The Something was a knitted vest, simple, done in reverse stockinette…but with a TIE knitted into it in stockinette stitch.   And Brian turns to me, and said,

” Can you make me one of these??”

Of COURSE I could, but after the holidays.  And then he said the magic words: 

 ”I’ll pay you — in coffee.”

Say no more.  Barter society it is.  Knitted goods for coffee.  Pictures to come, along with a link to my crochet blog, where I’m gonna put up some of the pictures from the doll booklet.

A Saturday In December

A Saturday In December, Late in Winter….

Christmas is not a big deal at our house.  Matter of fact, it’s not a deal at all.

I did buy, wrap and ship modest presents for the distant members of the family, and I did get my hubs a book for his birthday/Xmas present, but we have no tree, decorations, lights, groaning board of bad-for-you-food, and no houseful of stressed out people of all ages and sizes. 

I am listening to the radio play Christmas music (although I tend to turn it down when it gets too treacly), and the Hubs is watching some god-awful French movie on Netflicks on his laptop. 

So, here’s a thing to think about.  Try this at home, boys and girls.  Be the first on your block to NOT have a stressful, emotionally-exhausting, and expensive Christmas.  Just think about what it means:  Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men (and Women AND Children), and try just that.  Simple?  Harder than it looks.  Be good.

Merry Snowy Christmas

Crawling back from the edge…

Hi, Gang, it’s me.  Remember me?  I barely remember  me.  When I last posted 5 weeks ago, I didn’t realize that I would become a statistic.

Yup, a good ol’ CDC statistic.  Apparently during the swine flu epidemic of this fall, there were thousands of cases of people getting a moderate case of swine flu and then, after getting weakened by that, coming down with a really really good case of bacterial pneumonia. 

You guessed it.   Moi.  And with my history of bronchitis and pneumonia hospitalizations, I got the (dun dun DAH…!)THE DOUBLE WHAMMY.  I never did get back to work, and spent most of the month of November in bed.  (THIS, dear friends, is what happens when we don’t have national health insurance.)  We had no health insurance in November, and I should have been in the hospital.  Luckily, I had massive doses of antibiotics and then cortisone to open up my chest.  Drank lots of fluids and didn’t eat much.  Did not go out at all, except for groceries, and T.A. went with me on those. 

I finally turned the corner about a week ago:  I can actually stay awake all day; I can breathe freely; I don’t feel like I have a gorilla sitting on my chest anymore, and the best thing is that I actually am starting to have an appetite again.  I still don’t have a lot of stamina — I can go out and do stuff for about 2 hours and then it’s time to come home, but it’s way better than it was.

Been taking advantage of the downtime at home to catalog new yarn acquisitions.  This has led to a silent vow, punishable by severe self-chastising, of NO NEW YARN IN 2010.  I have plenty of yarn, and I really need to start doing some destash of the odds and ends that I will never use.   Working fitfully on a new crocheted shawl pattern; stay tuned. 

Oh, and have I mentioned how very very much I completely hate Christmas music?  The fact is, that it goes up into the Muzak pipes of the world even before Thanksgiving now, and I AM BURNED OUT AND HATE/HATE/HATE IT.  In conversation with KnitBud Anne,  I found out that she, like myself, absolutely DESPISES Xmas music, and we both have a sharp, horrid and particular hatred for “The Little Drummer Boy”, that treacly tom-tom of a commercial Xmas carol.

Which brings me to another issue — Xmas music on public radio.  Now, Dear Reader, I must confess.  I do not support my local classical music station.  Why?  Because they advertise “Classical music, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”  THIS is not true on my section of their network.  SEVEN months of the year, I have classical music from 6 am to 7pm.  Then the local college takes over the network and I will not listen to college students stumbling over the local news, nor listen to the endless hours of death metal that comes after that.   My only months when I can listen to “Performance Today” or any other post-7pm programming are May, June, July, August, and December. 

And, YUP, you guessed it.  Not only do I have to suffer through XMAS music on PUBLIC CLASSICAL RADIO, I have to put up with the pledge drive as well, first thing in December, and usually the first thing in June as well.   Plus, they fired all their live hosts about 5 years ago and went to the canned presenter segments and the top 500 classical format.  (If they think that I and others don’t notice that programmers don’t check the playlist for each segment, screw up and play “Bolero” twice in 6 hours, they would be wrong. )  So that’s my beef.  They are, in their own way, no better that Clear Channel, and not worthy of my money.  I may be called a Grinch, or Scrooge, but I, like them, have my reasons.

“This will end in tears…”

Says Marvin, the deeply despondent robot in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. 

Well, he wasn’t too far off. 

Right after my last post, I shouldered my backpack and Went Back To Work. 

It was brutal.  It was a TWO hour commute each way, door to door.  After staggering through the first two weeks, I politely asked to be replaced — but they were so nice, they let me start leaving an hour early (which is one of the things I love about temping — if you don’t want money, you don’t have to work).  That adjustment worked well for the next two weeks, and then (dun dun DUH!) I got the flu.  And then after that, from being pulled down by the flu, I got pneumonia — granted, it’s the “walking” version (HAH! More like the “zombie shuffle” version), but I am still pretty bloody sick. 

Currently recovering at home, but still, I’ve only been able to get into work for 2 days out of the last two weeks.  And I only have one week (next) left on this gig.  T.A. has had the flu (albeit a milder case, why?!) and has been in and out of his office as well.  But he was well enough to ferry me to the doctor on Wed, when I finally got some ginormous antibiotics and have been able to get on the mend — which means now coughing up wads of white stuff as opposed to green and yellow stuff. (yeah, TMI, but that’s what you get for reading my blog, foolish human.)

How sick am I?  Can’t concentrate on anything for more than 5 minutes at a time, and I HAVE NO APPETITE.  Not even for bacon.  That’s pretty much at’s death door for me, and I will not scare you any more.  Maybe time for some more soup — yes, I’m forcing myself to eat.  I’m really sick.  T.A. wants me to bag the last week of my gig, and get back to the life here. I’m getting to agree with him…stay tuned.

Copper Mesh Wrap Shawl Published!

Well, after a couple of months of hemming and hawing, I’ve finally published my first pattern FOR SALE on Ravelry!

It’s this lovely shawl that I sort of noodled out last month…

Copper Mesh Wrap Shawl

I’m very pleased with it; it’s simple to crochet, and you, LUCKY YOU, can buy it from Ravelry by clicking here.

Whaaaa?

It’s September, and the weather turned the corner right after Labor Day weekend — CLICK.  Just like that, it’s fall. 

Well, we did have our federally-mandated two weeks of summer during August; but the summer was literally a complete wash.  I am glad to see the back of that wet drizzling nasty bastard, and look forward to some nice fall weather.  The Pages and I are off to the Fingerlakes Fiber  Festival this next weekend, and I hope to find some lovely, inexpensive yarn (yeah, right!) while I’m there.

Lots of big and little crochet and knit projects going; I think that I might actually be hitting the halfway mark on my unbelievably neato Sasha Kagan crocheted (yes, dear ones, crochet from Sasha “Queen of Intarsia Knitting” Kagan) shawly-scarf this week, and am just finishing up the third of a series of crocheted, worsted-weight color change shawls, one of which I will put up on the Etsy shop when I get it up and running.   Some Xmas presents are ready; some are still under construction, and I would love to know what I did with that damn ball of Malabrigo lace that I got to make Mom a scarf for her birthday…it definitely went walkabout in the livingroom, that’s for sure….

T.A. is suffering bravely through the absolutely WORST case of poison oak/ivy that I have ever seen, textbook or otherwise.  We have been to immediate care twice in the last week; and he’s on his second round of more powerful steroids plus prescription cortizone cream to help take down the oozing welts on his body.  It’s just NASTY.   And to top it all off, he’s back to work officially (YAY!!!!!) on Wednesday.  We have a lot to do before then…

My Danish Granny — A Pattern Of Sorts

I’ve really wanted to have a Traditional Danish Tie Shawl since I saw it in Spin-Off back in 2008.  It had the swooping wings to tie around me and a long triangle in the back.  Sooooo pretty…..

So I knitted one last winter from some worsted alpaca.  Not So Good.  I ran out of the yarn, and it was too short for my 5’10” broad shouldered, long-waisted body.  What I needed was a really big, deep, wide, drapey shawl.. and I didn’t want to take the weeks of knitting with a fingering to sport weight yarn on smallish needles to make one.  Rats.  So I set the idea aside.

Summer 09 – The dog days of August.  We have swum through this summer; unrelenting days of rain and overcast, and when the sun comes out?  Oy, the humidity!  I do NOT want to knit with a pile of wool on my lap. 

But I could crochet.  For some reason, I fell back into crochet – I haven’t crocheted a garment in 30+ years, and now I’m thinking about this?  Strange.  But I could do something simple.  Maybe some granny squares to…nah.  I like shawls…some granny squares to make a shawl?   Nah.  Then I remember…

 The half granny!  Iconic triangular shawl of the late 60’s and into the 70’s; usually multi-colored; made from the finest Sayelle or Wintuk or Orlon.  Y’know, for an era that was start of the ecological movement, there sure were a lot of un-natural fibers being used…

 I hit the intertube for a refresher on the half granny and found the best one right here:  

http://crochet-mania.blogspot.com/2008/06/blog-post_13.html

Teresa has easy directions, symbol crochet and a video – Thanks, Teresa!  I was back up to speed and ready to roll…

 My 70′s shawl will be multi-colored, but not in worsted weight.  I decide, after a quick visit to AC Moore, that I’ll use sock yarn and an expanded gauge to crochet this mother.  Bow chicka bow-bow, 70’s, here I come!

So I start.  And suddenly, I see it.  OMG.  A Danish Tie Shawl is triangular but with the neck and front edges shaped by extra increases to extend them.  This is what makes the shawl wrap around the body.  Can I do this with a Half Granny?  I rip out the several rows that I’ve done and walk in circles, talking to myself.  My husband and the cats are amused, yet slightly alarmed.

 Feverishly, I think.  (Just a reminder here: I’m very lazy.  No math.  No crazy changes.  Even my fevers tend to be mild.)  I’m now calling it the Danish Granny Shawl in my head, or DGS for short, and I am thinking how to make this happen.

Increases on the ends?  Mmmmm – no.  I cheat.  I fudge the gauge and the edges by doing two simple things, and that, dear reader, is what you are going to do as well.  Here’s the cheating part.  Ya READY?!

 First:  Work the first 2, possibly 3 rows (but no more than that) of the DGS with a hook that’s 2-3 sizes smaller than the main body hook.  I used an H for this (then switched to a K for the body).  DON’T be at all squinchy or tight with your first rows — there should be a slight, but visible difference (“snugger”, if you will) to these rows.  Then, switch out to the larger K hook for the body.

 Second:  Turning chains.  Remember when you were learning how to crochet and those darn turning chains were too tight and your edges got all bendy and crappy?  Do that again.  No, seriously.  Since you are working clusters of DC for the shawl, the CH3 that you make to turn is considered part of the first DC cluster.

 Make that CH3 pretty snug with your K hook (after you work your first 2-3 rows).   OK, if you are morally opposed to snug chaining, make it a CH2.  Whatevah. 

 The point is to deliberately curve the edge of the DGS.  Your CH3 or CH2 on the edge should be gently pulling the head of your next DC over it.   This, over time, curves the edge of the shawl.  You do not have to use the smaller hook.  Just let GO of the notion of a straight edge and Make It So.

 Work in this manner until you are sick of it, or run out of yarn or both.  I used 6 skeins of Paton’s Kroy FX sock yarn in Cascade Colors (teal! squee!) (yds/sk =166) and 1 skein of Kroy solid in Gentry Grey for the edging.  I wanted a big-ass shawl and I got it;  the rest of the world could probably get by with 5 skeins and 1 for contrast and the truly tiny (y’know, you ELFIN girls!) could do with 4 and 1.  Buy extra, match your dyelots, and keep your receipts.  Here’s the finished product!

Out Flat on the Floor -- The Danish Granny Shawl

lovely colors in that sock yarn....

Oh, and here’s the edging!  Sedate and sober, to contain that gypsy soul.. 

With the solid color and the K hook:  Start by working across the neck edge.  3 SC in every CH3/2 space (whatever worked for you); 3 SC in every end DC space.

Keep going and… for the outer edges: SC in every DC, 1 SC in the CH1 space between the DC clusters, and work 3 SC in the CH2 space on the point.  When you get back to the neck edge, sl st to join, then change to an “I” hook (yes, change hooks – trust me!)

 CH 2 and TURN.  You’re going back along the outer edges.  With the I hook, work 1 row of HDC in every SC around those outer edges; work 3 HDC in the “corner/point” to make it lay flat; work to neck edge, and then SC across in every SC across neck edge; sl st at end to join. 

HDC edging on Danish Granny

Single Crochet Neck Edging

  One more thing and then I’ll let you get going:  Traditional Danish Tie Shawls have, um, ties — one on each end of the extended fronts.  I’ve made that optional by doing the following:  Join your yarn back onto the end of one of the front points.   Tightly chain 6-8 ch st; sl st back onto point, creating a loop.  Repeat for other point.  You now have very small loops to put a tie (Tie: With K hook, chain approx 18”, turn and slip st through all ch, fasten off) through.  No permanent dangly ties, but you can now tie the ends of the shawl behind you whenever you want to with this modification.

One of the Optional Back Tie Loops

 

 To recap: 

My gauge with a K hook:  DC clusters are ¾” high, and I had 3 DC clusters and 3 CH-1 spaces in 4 inches.

 Start making a Half-Granny square, using sock yarn and a size H hook.  This will make the back of the neck start to curve and fit nicely around the back of your neck!  Work the first 2-3 rows as usual, then switch to a K hook and work the main part of the shawl until large enough, remembering to either tighten up or shorten your turning chains on the neck edge.

 Finish off with a nice border of single and half-double crochet in the same or contrasting color. 

 This would be a great sock yarn stash buster; or you can go out and mix and match solids, self-patterning or any other mash-up you’d like.   The trick is to keep the  crochet gauge very loose so that it drapes and flows. 

 Even with ripping and re-working, this is a fast crochet – less than a week for me and I am slow like the turtle when it comes to crochet.  My gift to you.  Enjoy!

Nice and Long! Just what I wanted!

Close-Up of Front Overlap

Here it is from the Front....

And of course, the obligatory BT-esque shot...