Knitting and Dancing

I've been knitting, but not blogging lately.  Between the day job and dance calling gigs, I've been on the go.  I'm writing this in a Bruegger's bagel place in Durham, NC.  The wireless in my hotel last night was so poor that I was forced to watch cable TV and knit on my demin blue socks.  I've been blasting through these at nearly record time.  In fact I knit from midway down the cuff & most of the heel flap last evening, after I took the picture on the right.

I really like this yarn - Paton's Kroy Socks in a demin blue colorway that fades lighter & deeper as one ply changes at a time.  The socks don't truly match - and that's okay.

I've also been knitting on my green cardigan.  It's a yoke sweater based loosely on this pattern, but I doubts I'll start with the lace motif.  It's very pretty, but I think the character of the yarn might be better suited to a moss stitch section, then maybe a garter rib, then a seed stitch with a couple of garter ridges in between. I can hide the decrease rounds in the garter rows.  Seems like it might be a good idea to knit a swatch of this pattern combination - what a concept!

The dance schedule has been quite busy.  I attended the English Country Dance SpringFest in Durham last weekend - I had a wonderful time dancing to Helene Cornelious & the Sun Assembly's house band, Collard Greene (great name!).  I called the TCD contra dance on Friday night, I'll be calling the Asheville Advanced Dance this coming Friday night - that's tomorrow- and I'll be calling the ECD on Sunday afternoon.  I'm usually not this busy, but all of a sudden I have a bunch of calling gigs.  Also, there are dance events all over the place.  I'd love to go to the Nashville Playford Ball, but its kind of a haul - about 5 hours of driving each way, though the band and leader are probably worth it.

In the mean time, I've been dyeing and shipping orders from the shop, but mostly the day job has kept me quite busy.  In a few minutes I'll be on my way to a meeting at UNC-Chapel Hill to work with a collaborator.  We are developing a Summer Institute for teachers using the Library of Congress and the Paideia method. Ah, spring break!

Frogged!

The Mossy Cardi is no more.  It's sad end came on Saturday morning.  There was no fixing the problem, so I frogged the sweater and washed the yarn.  Before (sorry the picture is so dark) ...

Note that although the sleeves were not yet knit, I was nearly to the shoulders.  But alas, the Mossy Cardi is no more.  Instead of becoming this, it became this...

 

Since washed and hung to dry.  I don't even feel the least bit bad about it.  I enjoy the process of knitting, so even if the sweater no longer exists, I had the pleasure of the knitting.  But since I like the yarn and I like knitting, now I have a chance to knit something completely different....I think this...

You may now call me the Queen of Confidence.  I've already started spinning the yarns for the yoke! 

Sad End of a Project and Art Ed Knitting

Before the tragedy befell my Mossy Cardi

The blog has been a bit quiet for a number of reason - mostly day job related.  But I hit something of a rough patch in my knitting too.  I pulled out the Mossy Cardi to take up my knitting where I left off in early fall.  I was knitting along, dividing for armholes, decreasing for neckline shaping and I picked up my sweater to admire it and found a great big honking mistake.  Actually a hole - perhaps even a moth hole.  Of course it is in a truly obnoxious place - center lower back - as though I am sprouting a tail and need a place for it to come through.  I have not seen any other evidence of same, but I am up against a decision.

1. Duplicate stitch over said hole, unravel excess yarn  & carry on.  Hope mend doesn't show.

2. Unravel sweater to hole & reknit, watching carefully for 'evidence.'

3. Unravel entire sweater, watching carefully for 'evidence,' wash all yarn and decide which sweater I want to knit. 

4. Glare at the offending sweater and wish it would get better by itself.  This has so far been my ploy.  Sadly, it is not working.

On a more positive note, I will be joining my colleague Barbara in her Art Ed class as we teach a dozen or so future elementary teachers (and a couple of future art teachers) to knit.  We are using a super simple hand warmers pattern, First Fingerless Mitts [Rav link].  All you really do is knit a rectangle and sew it up, leaving a thumbhole.  But for a begininng knitting project, it's about right.  I prefer to knit a wee thumb, but this time it's not really about me.

Last evening, Barbara and I went to a chain crafts shop to purchase yarn.  We got a nice mix of colors in a collection of tweeds & soloids.  I bought myself some Lion Brand Amazing as my class samples.  'Amazing' is Lion Brand's wool-acrylic color change yarn.  I don't have the ball band with me, so I can't tell you the color name and number, but it is a lovely orange-copper-red-gold combination that I like very much.  I've knit about 2 inches of garter stitch and it looks lovely.  I like the fact that they won't be 'matchy-matchy' though I'm not sure our students will appreciate it nearly as much.  After my short lecture on the history of knitting and looking at a few samples, casting on begins tomorrow.   

Mossy Green Moss Stitch

The mossy cardi continues to grow this week end, thanks to time in the passenger seat and a bit of porch sitting.  I finally made it to the arm holes - in fact the decreases are nearly finished and I can do a bit of mindless knitting until it's time for the collar shaping.  I am quite happy with it.  I love the color and the fabric, as well as the process.  I'm not having any trouble melding the 2 patterns, nor do I expect any trouble doing my own mods later.

I spent the weekend with a friend in North Georgia, with a side trip to Atlanta for a bit of retail therapy.  As I have mentioned in this blog, I have been spending some time and energy on my home.  Some delayed maintenance, some improvement and just a decision to make it a better place to live.  To that end, we went to Ikea where I continued that endeavor.  A classic bentwood 'Poang' chair & footstool, functional bed sidetables and a storage unit will go a long way to making my home a nicer place to be. At the risk of sounding like a commercial, I love Ikea.  The clean, modern design appeals to me and I love the tiny, model apartments set up in the store, though I always try to find a home for the spinning wheel, fiber stash and enough space for books.  Though I guess that's what all those storage units are for.   Then the fun comes when you get to assemble your goodies.  I am totally charmed by the elegant way everything fits together as well as the pictographic instructions.  

In the natural world:  It's raining!  A steady rain most of today, I came home to a naturally watered garden, lots of green beans but also evidence that some furry creature has been snacking in the garden.  Luckily bunny foo-foo (or whoever) likes the green bean leaves, but not the vines or beans themselves.  A few tiny okra pods have shown up and the butternut squash are turning buff.  The tomatoes are still green.

Another Inch

Exciting blog fodder:  Last night I knit about another inch or so on my Mossy Cardi.  I intend to do a bit more knitting over the weekend.  So exciting!  But in fact I hope to get to the 'divide for the armholes' part of the pattern.  Keep in mind that even though this sweater will eventually look somewhat like the Drops 103-1 jacket, it is constructed by knitting the body in one piece to the sleeve area, then dividing into a back and 2 fronts.  Make appropriate shaping until it's shoulder time.  It is a bit more complicated, what with trying to make both sides even and all.  Not too mention a bit of variation on stitch count between the 2 patterns.  But as I will be a house guest over the weekend and will be a passenger on the drive home, I foresee plenty of knitting time.

I'll be calling a contra dance this weekend in Cornelia, Georgia with one of my favorite bands, Steamshovel.  It's just 2 guys, but they are an amazing band.  Roger Gold of the Elftones is playing (mostly) guitar with David White on fiddle and banjo.  Should be lots of fun for those who want a bit of high energy dancing in North GA.  After that I have a little flurry of calling gigs around these hills.  So join me to dance and knit, though not necessarily at the same time!

Renate Hiller - "On Handwork"

This video is making the rounds of knitting blogs of late.  Sweet and simple and making lots of sense, I'm posting it here as well.  I like what Ms. Hiller has to say about making things.  Why do we make yarn by hand? Why do we knit socks, when we can buy them at almost any local store?  Why am I knitting a sweater in July?  I can easily buy one for 1/2 the price.  

Speaking of sweaters, here is a bit of progress on my Mossy Cardi, now up to nearly 9 inches (23 cm).  That's a good bit of knitting and it's going faster than I expected.  Love the yarn, love the color, love the semi-mindless knitting.  Usually I'm seeking purl-avoidance, but I don't even mind the purl rows.  I switched from my usual Addi-Turbo needles to bamboo.  The sharper points of the turbos were snagging the plies.  The blunt-tipped bamboos, don't do that. 

I think my progress comes from being slightly sidelined by a summer cold.  Instead of party-ing with friends I was quite happy to stay home and finish watching the the HBO miniseries John Adams on Netflicks. Gotta say - loved it!  Now I knew about as much about John Adams as the next non-history major - almost nothing!  Now I know that historical biopics can be a wee bit revisionist - after all it's TV.  But still a nice look at American history and probably worth watching.

The Mossy Cardi - Cast on!

Well, I cast on the Cirrus/Drops 103-1 variant this week.  The hardest part was figuring what part of each design that I wanted.  Basically it's construction style of the Cirrus with the detailing of the Drops.  I'll make every effort to document my variations as well as my progress on my Ravelry page.  The yarn, Louet Riverstone chunky is a lovely mossy green.  It's only 7 centimeters long so far (which somehow sounds longer than 2 3/4 inches), but I have not spent much time on it yet. 

I am not one of those notable knitting bloggers who decides to cast on a sweater and completes it within a week or two.  What with a commitment to spinning again, the garden to tend and a quite full time day job that has been very interesting (dare I say fun) lately, knitting is something that has lately been in tiny bits and pieces.  A Windy City hat took me 2 weeks!  Of course the actual knitting was about 2 hours!  My only goal at this point is to wear the sweater sometime this winter!

The US Independence Day holiday weekend is here and with it a fun party up in the country just a short hike to the French Broad River.  We will likely dip our toes into the drink!