The winter solstice was extremely cold here in Chicagoland. Single digit temps with a strong wind and lots of snow and ice making walking, driving, and parking all very difficult. I braved the weather and had a beautiful musical day – bell choir in the morning and a recorder recital in the afternoon. A wonderful way to celebrate the shortest day.
The rest of the week was mostly spent being iced-in at home. Before Xmas I was knitting madly away at some plain green socks for my honey. Dub helped by trying them on periodically (he and his dad both size 12), but then after the gift-giving it turned out the foot was too short. No big problem because Dub will be happy to get them.
I bought myself three new knitting books – they are all fabulous and will be fueling 2009 with lots of good knits.
First, the new sock book from Cat Bordhi, “New Pathways for Sock Knitters.” This is a knitter’s dream with so many new ideas to try. I’ve made over 20 pairs of Simple Socks (per Priscilla Gibson-Roberts’s book of the same name) so I’m ready for a change and the fun of learning something new. Though I’m sure I’ll never entirely stop making Simple Socks.
Then, “Knit One Below” by Elise Duvekot. This book is both inspiring and frustrating. Inspiring because the author has taken one very wonderful stitch pattern and exploited it in a huge range of designs. She shares what she has learned about the stitch and about how to design with it.
But, it is frustrating too. For my taste there is way too much space in the book given to number-by-number instructions for all the designs with not nearly enough space left for the theory part. Lots of the good information is scattered around too. But still, I love the basic “knit one below” stitch as presented and am soaking up all I can.
The “knit one below” stitch pattern is part of the waffle stitch or rose fabric family of knitting stitches. Back in the last century (around ’97) I started a sweater in one of the sibling stitches called “Checked Rose Fabric.” This is a beautiful two color pattern that I started making up into a top-down raglan cardign in pink and blue yarn from stash.
Really, the pink and blue not as bad as it might sound – the blue is a lovely gray-ish tone and gives overall sophistication when the pink is added. I really must dig up that sweater and take a photo (and re-learn how to post photos too, haha) to show.
I abandoned the sweater in mid-stream. I can’t remember exactly why. Running short on yarn may have been part of it, and also changing my mind about the sleeve shaping. The fabric is very hard to rip back without confusion, so when I found myself wanting to re-do the whole sleeve that may have been enough to send it to the bottom of the unfinished object pile.
Well, the Duvekot book has got me thinking about Checked Rose Fabric again. I made a sample swatch yesterday and am hot about starting a new sweater, and even resurrecting the old one (maybe rip out the whole thing and start over, eh?). There will be lots more on this for sure.
The third book was “Knitting Lace Triangles” by Evelyn A. Clark. This is a lovely little book with exquisite triangular shawls using four laces (ripple, medallion, flower, and leaf) - individually or in combination. I’ve been wanting to do another shawl. I think I will be shopping for some yarn – either fingering or lace weight, I haven’t decided yet – in a nice lavender to make the four-lace version that the author calls “Garden Shawl.”
I always think of this week between Xmas and New Year’s as a piece of time outside of the regular year. I time to think both back and forward, to get ready for the New Year to begin. I wish you all a very good New Year.
