A quick dish cloth

A quick one hour knit. The pattern is from the Yahoo Holiday Mystery Group and was designed by Bev, aka knitslikecrazy. Yarn used is Knit Picks CotLin. I like the yarn much better than the old Plymouth Linen Isle. The yarn is smoother of better quality and has good stitch definition. I am going to wash it a couple of times to see how it holds up after knitting. I think it would make a nice summer Tee.

Knit on Merrily!

Rosenheim Socks

Monika Eckert's designs are always a challenge for me. Not the kind of pattern you knit with your eyes glued to the TV. These were knit with an old skein of hand-dyed yarn. Of course the yarn was dyed by the resident dyer, aka my daughter A. I used 2.0 mm needles so the socks fit my feet better. Moni's sock patterns are made for socks normally knit with 64 stitches. Sixty stitches are plenty for me. Rosenheim is a city of approximately 60,000 inhabitants in the German state of Bavaria. Another pair of Moni's socks are on the needles.

Knit on Merrily!

Just a little something

I've been amiss in taking photos of finished items. Don't know exactly why, probably the winter doldrums which start around the end of October in the spot I call home. My daughter, A., had won a skein of Mountain Colors 4/8 wool. Since there were only 250 yards in the skein, the project had to be small. I found this pattern in the Fall 2005 issue Knitty.com and it fit the bill. After knitting the scarf, I had enough yarn left to knit a pair of wrist warmers. It's a nice little scarf to keep the neck warm since two banes in most Germans' lives are a cold neck and a draft. Add to that cold wrists, as far as I'm concerned. The project was knit on US Size 7 or for most of the rest of the world 4.5 mm needles. The wrist warmers are plain with a pattern of k3, slip 1, knit one round.

The spinning wheel belongs to A. I do not spin.

Knit on Merrily!

What a country!

The shooting in Tucson, Arizona is more than a week old and Representative Gabriella Giffords was moved to a Texas Rehabilitation Center today. The following quote found on Facebook via Susan B. describes this country's multiculturalism.

I remember many years ago when we lived in Southern California my mother came to visit from Germany. On her visit we took her to Disneyland and she expressed her wonderment at the many nationalities in one spot. She had, of course, lived her whole life in Germany much of it in a small out-of-the way spot in the Black Forest. The only foreigners she really had ever come in contact with were French and American soldiers, some of whom she had a valid reason to fear during the war.

So here is the quote:

This week we saw a white, Catholic, Republican judge murdered on his way to greet a Jewish, Democratic congresswoman, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon. Then it was all eulogized by our African-American president. In a tragic event, that's a remarkable statement about the country." ~Allen Ginsberg

After seeing today's news conference out of the Houston, Texas rehabilitation center, he spoke too early. It appears he may have wanted to add a couple of more American---- to his list. And to think it needed Allen Ginsberg to point it out to us. Indeed, what a country.

Socks and Cables

I disliked knitting cables. Not that I didn't know how to cross stitches with a cable needle, or twist 2 stitches without having to use an extra needle, but I had to always refer back to the explanation of the chart symbols to figure out which way the cable was to travel. Was it right or left? Did the stitch in front of me go to the back or up front.

I am a chart person, but a cable chart left me quaking in my boots or I should say Birkenstocks. Until the other day. The "Aha" moment finally arrived as I was drawing the two symbols and their explanations on the back of an envelope. Sort of a crib sheet to make it through the sock pattern. Up to that moment I had always concentrated on the little tail that was either up or down, in the right box or the left one. Never did I consider looking at the right or left leaning line which extended from one edge to the other of the box. Now if you give me a left or right leaning line in a chart, I know exactly which way the decrease leans, but the moment that little tail appeared I was helpless. The "Aha" moment came when I drew the symbols and finally realized just to ignore that little troublesome tail and concentrate on the diagonal line. And Voila! no more crib sheet. The knitting of that second sock went lickity split.

Of course all of this came at a price. I had found a sock on the needles, three quarter finished, but had forgotten I had already knit the first sock. And since I couldn't figure out where I had left off, I decided to just unravel the sock which I did post haste. Then I weighed the yarn and to my horror realized that the ball of yarn only weighed 50 grams instead of the 100 grams it should have. And wouldn't you know it, soon thereafter I found the first sock: knit, finished, yarn ends tucked away. Ah well the vagaries of not finishing what I had started. Serves me right.

The pattern is from Monika Eckert, a German designer whose designs I always find challenging. The name is Bad Toelz, a spa in Bavaria. Bavarian architecture is quite ornate much more so than in my old neck of the woods, the Black Forest. Yarn used was Plymouth Rockin' Sox and needles were 2.25 mm.

And now the picture show:

The colors are off quite a bit. Actually the yarn is green with blueish-purplish interspersed.

Knit on Merrily!