Thursday, June 21, 2012

Lake Michigan

We visited Ludington State Park in Michigan yesterday.  It's only a 40 minute drive from our home. By the time we got there the temperature was a comfortable 10 degrees F cooler than it was at our home. The park is right along Lake Michigan and includes a part of the shoreline of Lake Michigan, Hamlin Lake and Big Sauble River.  It has three campgrounds within it's confines.  It's one of a number of State of parks along the shoreline of Lake Michigan.  It has lots of foot and bicycle lanes, boating on both Lake Michigan and Hamlin Lake and one can go "tubing" on the Big Sable River.  Of course I went in my new top knit from Maggi's Cotton/Linen yarn.  The yarn is rather expensive, but a dream to wear.  Each time I wash the Tee, the fabric gets softer and cooler to wear



The pattern can be found here at Knitty.com and is called Gemini.  It's a top down pattern which always causes problems for my figure.  Around the neck and shoulders I need a small size but from the bust down I need a much larger size.  If I were to knit it according to the author's pattern, it would either fall of my shoulders or not fit in the bust area.  What I finally did was start with the second smallest size, and then after knitting about 1/3 of the neck area, I started increasing every row for the front and back and every fourth row for the sleeves.  The next time I will start with the smallest size for the neck.  Of course, I didn't write anything down.  Since I am old enough to spit on the side walk and wear red with purple, I suppose I can get away with "winging" it.

Since this photo was taken on our property, I decided to show you some of the ones we took at the lake yesterday. For any of my overseas readers the Great Lakes are made up of five Lakes--Michigan, Huron, Erie, Superior, and Ontario-- and contain about 20% of the world's fresh water supply.


Hamlin Lake with its swimming and boating area.

A view of Lake Michigan

 Lake Michigan shoreline with its sand dunes

 More Sand Dunes

Dune Grass

 The Big Sauble River

 And another view of the Big Sauble

One lonely deer on the far side of the Big Sauble River


No knitting done on this trip but when I got home, I continued with my Advent Calendar Scarf.

Knit on Merrily!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

2010 Advent Calendar Scarf

I know it's a bit late and not the correct season, but I decided to knit one of the many lace patterns that I have stored on my computer.  This one is from a group of German designers.  The yarn suggested is wool lace yarn from 600 m per 100 grams or thinner.  Well coloring within the lines has never been my strong point and when my youngest daughter and I were at Michael's one day, I found some Aunt Lydia's crochet thread #10 with a length of 300 yds. or 274 m.  Close enough for me and I liked the name of the color Zen Green.  I chose a 2.75 mm instead of a 4 mm needle.  The bamboo looks better knit with a smaller needle size. The pattern is free from Ravelry and can be found here.

The first six sections are done.  Altogether there are 24 sections.  Lately, I find that I have more difficulty knitting with such thin and a bit floppy (due to the 100% Bamboo) yarn.  Due to age, my hands are shaking just slightly-- almost not visible--but it does make really fine knitting somewhat more difficult.  It's particularly noticeable at the start of lace knitting.  Therefore, I have decided that the next time I knit with such fine yarn, I will do a provisional cast on by knitting an inch with a slightly thicker yarn and then start the actual project.  After finishing, I can always cut off the mismatched piece of knitting and finish the edge with a crochet row or Elizabeth Zimmermann's sewn cast off.  I am getting too old to make myself a basket case over such minor issues. 


So knit on merrily and, oh, don't find the mistakes. 

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

June Afghan Squares

Here are the June squares.  We are about half-way through.





Knit on Merrily!