Sleet and freezing rain, the local schools are closing, our Girls Scout meeting has been cancelled (we still have to pick up over 300 boxes of cookies for delivery, but that's a problem for another day).
We have already brought firewood into the (attached) garage, since all this time reading Little House has taught us something.
And I am prepared to continue my cable obsession, which started with Twist.
This time I'm making a headband for one of the kids, using a pattern she selected from Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Patterns for Knitting. The white yarn is a provisional cast on; when I'm done I'll graft the 2 ends together to make a ring. Then I'll start another headband for the other child, using a different pattern.
This is the first time I've used this book, which I've had for 3 or 4 years. I was intimidated by the charts -- Lavold writes them a bit differently than the cable charts I'm used to. This time, though, I simply plunged in, got it wrong, ripped it out, tried again using the photograph as reference, ripped it out another time or 2, and now am happily working away. There's an explanation of how to use the charts in the book, of course, but that would've taken 5 minutes to read; I much prefer my helter-skelter method of beginning the project immediately, then taking an hour or so to fiddle with it since I was unprepared.
I rarely make gauge swatches, as you could probably guess.
Okay, I made and washed and blocked a gauge swatch for Twist, but my main thought upon doing it was " Gees, I'm really losing my edge," since it's so much more exciting to spend hours and hours making a sweater with only the vaguest idea of whether you're making it the right size. Making the swatch first just seemed so ... safe. When Twist turned out great it wasn't a surprise -- it was a great pattern made in the proper size, ho hum, yawn, of course it looks nice.
Favorite Twist anecdote: I knit on Twist quite a bit a dance class while talking to other moms. And last night I was at dance class knitting away on this headband, and got the question, "Whatever happened to that sweater you were knitting -- did you finish it?" "I'm wearing it now." Jaws drop, gasps. "THAT'S IT?" Then 10 minutes later someone else walks in, says, "Oh, what are you making now? Did you finish that sweater?" etc., etc. I assume they weren't expecting the final product to look so ... I don't know ... wearable.
3 comments:
I LOVE that those Moms were so unexpecting. Probably the whole time you were knitting, they still just saw sticks and string, not the beginnings of gorgeous cables. I'm not much of a swatcher either. I figure I'll measure after the first 4" or so.
Twist came out just gorgeous. As I suspect these headbands will!
Our weather is crazy!
one day in the 60's and the next in the 30's.
I'm so glad you made their mouth drop! Your work is beautiful!
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