theraineysisters knitting and so much more

Yay! The start of my weekend, since I work 4 days a week. First off, thanks to all of you who have responded ‘in droves’ to our survey — very interesting comments!! We will certainly share our findings and also try to incorporate some of your ideas and suggestions.

I started off the day today with a therapeutic massage for my wrist and things felt “different” — in a good way. I think progress is being made.

Progress or not, I have been doing a little bit of knitting. As Sally mentioned in a previous post, we are both knitting Taiga — a bulky-weight vest with a gorgeous accent of stranded knitting.

As I said, I chose my colors poorly. They went together quite well on the face of things, but the stranding did not show up at all…not enough contrast between the two colors. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of the original colorwork (doh!) but the colors are below:

You can see that the colors are kind of cute together. I chose the orange because it matched some of the slubs in the grey tweedy yarn. The choice of orange was a bit “out of the box” for me — funky and fun and not like other things I have.

Well. I crawled back into my box!! After seeing Sally’s DARLING version with the pale green and dark purple, I had to jump on board. The purple is fantastic and I am very pleased. It killed me to rip out my colorwork because my knitting time is so limited and RE-knitting is absurd, but it had to be done.

The pattern has you do the stranding back and forth, which I did the first time around. Annoying but okay. But, no way was I going through that again, so I added a steek for the new color. To add the steek I ended at the end of a RS row, cast on 8 sts and then knit around again. I then added the purple and started the chart. When I finished the chart, I cast off the steek and kept going with the purple. Easy peasy.

Some knitters suffer from “steek anxiety.” I never suffered this ailment. Cutting my knitting never bothered me — even Alice St@rmore told me she had never seen anyone cut their first steek with such glee! I think the reason I am not bothered by cutting the steek is that it marks the next stage in the project — if you don’t cut it, you can’t finish it.

For the steek averse among you, I chronicled my steek surgery in photos (the color is very true in these photos):

Steek Close Up

At the machine

Starting to Cut

More…

All done!!

I often place something hard, like a book or cutting board, underneath the steek so I don’t cut the wrong thing (like strands from the other side of the knitting!). I didn’t really need it here because of how short the steek was and easy to see, etc. The book is Starmore’s Book of Fair Isle Knitting — a true classic!!

I kept going and finished the front pockets and am now doing the bottom half of the vest. This is supposed to be a quick knit in bulky yarn, but it doesn’t FEEL quick! It is not as easy for me to knit with bulky, chunky, tweedy yarn and large needles.

This project is really cute, though, and actually fits so far. I know people thought they couldn’t wear the bulky knits, calling themselves too “fluffy,” but I am not the smallest cherub in the choir by a long shot and it looks okay. I don’t feel like it makes me look any bigger than other knits.

Progress so far…

I still have to take it slow on the knitting, but should get this done soon. Maybe I can find a vest that knits itself!

Enjoy your weekend and your knitting!!

PS to Renee who said, “The skein of orange yarn looks like there should have been enough contrast next to the gray.” I agree! It looked like it should work. It just didn’t. I think the super tweediness of the gray overwhelmed the orange. It needed a solid, dark color.

HAPPY BLOGGIVERSARY!!!!

It’s hard to believe, but we’ve been writing this blog for six years. As we often do when our bloggiversary approaches, we’ve spent time reflecting on our knitting and blogging. There have been interesting changes in the knitting world over the past six years: Ravelry (which didn’t exist when we started and now has over 2 million members), a big shift to downloadable patterns, more online resources, and of course new yarns and tools.

We’d like to understand a little bit more about how our blog fits into your knitting world as we go forward. To that end, we’ve written a (brief) survey that we invite our readers to fill out. Responses will be anonymous. We’ll share any interesting findings and comments in a later post.

To reward you for responding, we’ll give out three prizes. Details on how to fill out the survey follow the descriptions of the bribes prizes.

Prize #1

Buffalo Wool. One reader will receive 120 grams (approximately 440 yards) of this luscious yarn (90% Bison, 10% nylon).

Prize #2

Brooklyn Tweed’s Loft. One reader will receive two skeins in the color “Longjohns” (100% wool; 275 yards per 50 gram skein).

Prize #3

Fino Alpaca with a Twist. One reader will receive two skeins in the color “Champagne” (70% Baby Alpaca, 30% silk; 875 yards per 100 gram skein). That’s enough yarn to make a shawl identical to Sally’s Forest Path Stole.

How to Fill Out the Survey and Enter the Contest

It’s easy. Just click here and fill out the survey. Instructions on how to enter are at the very end of the survey. The survey and contest are open through midnight Monday, March 26th. Prize winners will be announced on Tuesday, March 27th. (You have the option to enter for any or all of the prizes.)

Thank you for participating and, as always, thank you for reading!

Thanks to everyone for your support!! It does make my banishment to ‘non-knitters island’ a little bit easier!

I went to a massage therapist recommended by friend Mary and will go again several times this week. I did do a small amount of knitting and stopped any time there was a flare up of pain. I am going to back off that a bit for the rest of the week.

That is a tall order because Sally and I found a super cute, quick knit project and I am dying to work on it! She will share hers soon because she is almost finished, as would I be…never mind.

…to my knitting. I have not been knitting the last few days because of my wrist pain. I could keep “soldiering” on but I know in the long run that would be a mistake. I may [heaven forbid] go to a doctor. I just hate having to do that!! So, I won’t be updating any projects in the near future. Yes, I am bummed. Big time.

I keep knitting, but continue to second guess myself on this project! It could end up beautiful or pitiful…only time will tell. It is a lot of knitting, too, which means my “return on investment” could be terribly in the red. However, I keep telling myself it is only knitting, not a cure for cancer, so the outcome is not that important in the big scheme of things.

The project: Daydreams in Lace from Knitters 100th Issue (yes, I said Knitters!):

Yes, I see myself as a 100-pound flower child from 1971. Do you have a problem with that?

The yarn: Madelinetosh Light in color Midnight Pass. I would show a picture of the color but it is impossible to capture. I mean IMPOSSIBLE! But picture the most intense turquoise/aqua in the world and you will have it. You need sunglasses to look at it directly.

This is my progress so far:

Believe it or not, it actually fits when I tried it on. Lettie is not thrilled:

Again, even as I look at these photos, I keep wondering…what the beeboop am I thinking??!! I forced Sally to buy some of this yarn as well…she will share her project in due time!!

From Sally

Susan is right — her photos do NOT capture the color. It is the most intense turquoise I’ve ever seen. It is a much bolder color than either of us usually knits with, but I like it.

Winter finally reared its head in Minnesota!

It really does look blue outside right now. We have an official “snow day” for Jena’s school. No snow day for me though. I am NOT going to attempt it!

An update:

Another Birkie under our belts: 29th finish for John! And what a finish it was. It was one of his best races. He looked great at the Finish Line — ready to keep skiing!

Far better than last year when it was so cold that people were pulled off with frost bite. The weather was perfect and John’s skis were fast.

Next year John will get a new bib color to denote his 30th race in Year 40 of the Birkie.

I, of course, was naughty. I kept knitting with my pain. Today I am going to take a break…though watching the “world famous award show that gives out little gold statues” (no trademark infractions here!!) without knitting will be very hard to do!!

It is that time of year again — The Birkebeiner Ski Race!! We head up every year and stay at the No-Tell Motel, so John can ski 30 miles in 3 hours. Whew! I’m already exhausted! 😉

I am bringing along my new copy of Principles of Knitting:

I have not even cracked it open yet…I am savoring the moment and will open it when the time is right. Or when I am bored to death in the car. Whichever comes first!

I am also bringing some knitting, though I am experiencing increasing pain in my right wrist. I have been wearing an immobilizer, and it doesn’t seem to aggravate it too much to knit, but the pain is worsening. Red flag! Stop knitting! It is very hard to listen to those voices in my head.

I will reveal the project when I get a little bit more done. I am over the top in love with the yarn, and the pattern is suited, but “out there.” It will certainly be an eye popper, but perhaps not in a good way. It may be a poor marriage of yarn and design, but whatever. It’s only knitting!!

We are in love with a new pattern. It is called Friday Again, designed by fallmasche on Ravelry.

It makes use of the new (to us) method of “contiguous sleeve” design. With this method, set in sleeves are added as you go in a seamless, top-down sweater. (It is similar to the more widely known method described in Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top Down, but it differs in a few important respects.) The sleeve cap is created with an ingenious method of frequent increases along the shoulder line. The resulting fit is fantastic.

Susan’s Friday

Yes, it’s me again!! I hate pictures of myself, but this design has to be seen on the wearer to appreciate the fit. I combined several sizes into one to get a perfect fit. I also added a little edge to the neckline, but it probably was unnecessary.

I used Berocco Ultra Alpaca Light in color Blueberry Crush. Gorgeous color. Gorgeous yarn. So delectably soft!! I love the finished result and plan on making a summery version as well.

Sally’s Friday

I had been looking for a pattern for some yarn since I bought it months ago. The yarn is Silky DK by Viola, a blend of silk and merino. The color: Nosferatu. I absolutely could not resist it.

This photo shows the sweater in progress before I divided for the sleeves. You can see how the sleeve and cap are created by the increases.

A few photos of it on Lucy:

Finally, a rare photo of me. I wore this when my daughter and I went out to dinner in Boulder for my birthday. This is a picture she took on her cell phone, so excuse the quality (and the model). Susan made me post it!

I love this sweater and I love the yarn with one caveat. It seems to want to pill. I may just need to cast on another Friday Again in a different yarn so I can throw it on no matter what day the calendar says it is.

Conclusion

We called this post “Simply Deceptive” instead of “Deceptively Simple,” which had been our first choice. The pattern has such a look of ease about it: stockinette in the round with a slip-stitch detail. What could be easier? However, the method is a bit different and fallmasche’s instructions might be difficult for some knitters to decipher in spots because instead of a more typical “narrative” form, much of the directions are provided in a table format. We called each other several times to double check our numbers. Others have sailed through it, and the technique is not difficult. We both recommend the pattern highly.

PS from Susan — where is the snow indeed!?! Last year we had over 60 inches by now and this year about 15. It is supposed to snow this week, however. Ugh for the commute time but great in other ways!

PS2 from Susan: Nancy asked what I did to the neckline: I picked up sts (stitch for stitch) from the WS through the cast on row and then bound off loosely as to knit (again, from the WS side row — I was working in the round).

PS3 from Susan: Sivani asked, “How did you find the back neck and its fit? Does the pattern include increases at the back neck and if so, did you follow the pattern or find that you had to make adjustments?” Short row shaping is done at the very beginning of the sweater to raise the back neck. It fits quite well, but it is straight across. I think it would be rather complicated to create a dip in the back neck if that is your preference. I’m sure it can be done, but it would be hard for me to wrap my brain around it!

Yes, we have seen this picture before. But today the focus is on the little one. My little sister, Sally. Not that much younger, especially over the span of a lifetime, but I am still the big sister.

Regular readers already know how I feel about Sally. She is my best friend. Truly. I am not just saying that because it’s her birthday! I know that a lot of people envy our friendship, not having a close sister in their lives. So, I do value this relationship beyond words. She knows everything there is to know and yet still puts up with me. I do push that envelope from time to time!!

Sally has many things going for her, and I hope she realizes it. She is very humble about her gifts!! So my gift to her (besides the package that already arrived!) is to say:

Hey, Surly! You’re pretty cool! Even for a little sister. And Happy Birthday!!