Debbie Bliss Cathay, size 4 needles, knit in size 32.
My impressions? Eh. I like the shaping. The picots ... the picots are annoying. They're made by yarn overs/knit 2 together for a row, then 2 rows of stockinette stitch, then folding along the yo/k2tog row and sew down the live stitches. This makes for a bulky picot. Also, check out how this top hugs that flab roll on my back. Yikes, I didn't know I had a flab roll there!
Overall, I didn't feel like this item deserved more effort in the picture-taking department, because I'm wallowing in disappointment right now.
I blocked it by immersing in water, rolling up in a towel to blot excess water, then laying out on another towel. The Cathay bled a periwinkly outline on the towel I laid it on. The blocking helped the picots, but they still need to be beaten in submission with an iron or something. I suspect that it will take another session with the iron after every wash. Bleh.
Someday I might unsew the edges, unravel the picots, and put a smoother edge on it. Sheesh, sounds like a lot of work.
Other disappointments:
We just finished reading Charlotte's Web. Charlotte died, once again. We all sat on the couch, bawling. Do you know how many times I've read that book? How many times I've heard it? My mom used to read it to me when I was little. We cried every time Charlotte died. I don't know how many times she read it to me, but I felt like I had nearly memorized it by the time the fateful day came that I picked it up on my own (we owned a hardback copy). I had been working on those uber-boring reading exercises in school, probably first grade, and just happened to pick it up ... opened it ... and started reading. "Where's Papa going with that ax?" Oh my gosh, I was Reading. Reading a Chapter Book! On My Own! It was one of the most exciting moments of elementary school. And catapulted the book to the category of Sacred Text in my mind.
These days we have it as a book on tape read by the author. He does an excellent job, and never starts sobbing inconsolably when Charlotte dies. The kids have listened to it about a billion times. You'd think we'd be hardened to it by now. But, no, I got out the hardback from the library to read to the kids because it's the August selection in The Arrow, from whence I get our copywork and dictation selections. The kids had never seen the pictures! Amazing! But, you know, I had never read it aloud to them.
Another disappointment is our water heater. It was installed in 1980. It's feeling its age, rather like Charlotte did there at the end when she couldn't climb down to go back to Zuckerman's farm. It's so old that the parts aren't made for it anymore. It's so huge that it's going to be a massive PITB to get it out of the basement if we need to replace it. Sigh.
1 comment:
oh bummer about the picot edge - & the Cathay bleeding? Ack. That sucks. Have you read Knitting on the Edge? Maybe you can find another edge that will work better ... but how much effort do you really want to put into a garment that can't be reliably washed?
I have never read Charlotte's Web & when I skimmed it at the library last summer I decided I hated it. Totally irrational but I'm dead set against it. It just seemed.... well, maudlin. I just don't get it.
bummer about the heater but a quarter century is a good life for a water heater, and you may really notice your bill go down if you get one of the high efficiency ones. The new thing around here is natural gas demand heaters - they don't have a tank, they just heat the water very fast when you need it. Never an empty tank! I'm coveting one badly.
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