Well, it's snowing outside, not as those of you who live in colder climates actually experience snow. But the snowflakes are swirling around in the air and making the road wet. I'm hoping that since it started early it'll be cold enough tonight to actually have some accumulation overnight. It's fun to have a few days to actually put the Quattro all-wheel-drive through its paces. The scary thing is that so many people here don't know how to drive in the snow because they never have had to. I'll probably ride the bus to school tomorrow so I can finish the multicolor moebius.

On the needles this Monday

Moebius in work
Originally uploaded by Loretta.

It's cold outside. There was frost on the ground this morning which is a rare occurence here. So I trundled off to the bus stop wearing the new yorrick scarf, the new lotus moebius hat, mittens, and a sweater under my coat. I felt like Ralphie's little brother on A Christmas Story. But it was a good opportunity to bundle up in my handknits and you never do know how long you'll be at the bus stop or what the angle of the sun will be there.

For knitting on the bus I'm working this moebius scarf out of some hand spun yarn I bought at the local weaver's guild show a few years ago. I'll probably have enough of this for another scarf. Maybe I'll add in something fuzzy for the second one.

Felted yorrick

Felted yorrick
Originally uploaded by Loretta.

It's finished and the Lush did felt really well, all the while keeping it's angora fuzziness. It's going to be fun wearing it when it's dry.

Finished Yorrick

Finished Yorrick
Originally uploaded by Loretta.

It's Sunday and the knitting on the yorrick and my lab reports and pathology presentation are all done. Not a bad weekend considering that all I did on Saturday was go to yoga class and then sit on the couch watching movies and the history channel on TV.

The scarf is in the washer right now felting. I checked it after 10 minutes to cut out the eye & nose strings and it's looking really great. I guess that sometimes it does pay to use the yarn called for in the pattern. Classis Elite Lush really felts great. I think it's going to be soft and warm, which is great as we are getting our obligatory week of cold winter weather. I know that people living in really cold places would be thrilled with just one week of cold weather but what can I say we're spoiled in Western Washington.

Half a yorrick

half-a-yorrick
Originally uploaded by Loretta.

Friday night's knitting. Now all I need to do is knit the other half. Really I love knitting with this soft yarn so much I keep thinking of other things to make out of it as I knit.

Last night's knitting

Another pair of Yorricks
Originally uploaded by Loretta.

I wound the moss green Lush and started the third Yorrick. I knit the two skulls at the same tim with two balls of yarn. Then I moved one to a holder and I'm knitting the plain stockinette section on the first one.

It is kind of a strange pattern because you leave strands and dropped stitches in the eye and nose holes that don't get cut out until after the felting. I promised myself that I'm not going to work on this until after I've written my two labs reports which are due on Monday. So I'd better GET TO WORK!

I guess I'll wind up the rest of that yarn

Umbrella swift in action
Originally uploaded by Loretta.

The moss green Classic Elite Lush that I'll use for the next Yorrick scarf. The kitties are afraid of the yarn swift and looking at this picture, who can blame them. This picture was also taken in the summer, a fact made obvious form the light streaming into the windows. Light just doesn't stream like this in late November.

Lotus flower moebius hat

Lotus flower moebius hat
Originally uploaded by Loretta.

I guess I did make something else this week. But I'm cheating on the pictures since I made and photographed the same hat in June. The light is never this bright in November. That's the dead giveaway.

Anyway the hat is made from the pattern in Cat Bordhi's A Treasury of Magical Knitting in Classic Elite Lush (which I don't know if they make anymore, but it's an angora/wool blend). I got several skeins of this on clearance in purple at the Fiber Factory in Mesa,AZ while I was there last November for the Manuso Manos workshop.

The pattern knits up really quickly with medium weight yarn on size 9 needles, but be aware that there is an error in the pattern in the book. The p3tog parts of round 6 and 8 are transposed. But if you are paying attention to how the pattern progresses you will spot the error (and the fix for it) right away. This is good because you have to repeat those round three times in the crown of the hat.

For me it's pretty much a one day hat. I did the moebius cast-on in the morning and finished the moebius hat band on the bus on the way to school. Then I started in on the crown pattern before my afternoon class and worked on it on the bus on the way home. Here is my chance to plug my favorite needle set, the Denise Interchangeables. With the Denise set, the switch from moebius knitting on the band to circular knitting on the crown is so much easier. And you don't have to carry around an extra needle. You can also do the smaller part of the top on two circular needles with one Denise set if you use two cords and make sure that the larger (size 9 needles) are on the right-hand needle side of the circ and you can use any of the smaller needles for the left-hand side of each circ. It works to knit with two different size needles because the right-hand needle determines the size of the stitches (if you don't believe me, try it yourself.) Not that I don't have two sets of Denise needles; my old reliable ones from the 80s and the new set that I bought when the new ones came out. With two sets, there's nothing I can't knit on size 5 or above.

I went to sit & knit Tuesday evening at my LYS for the first time in about 6 weeks and finished the hat there, despite much chatting and looking at other people's projects. It only takes one skein of Lush and I have one more left, so I'll probably make another one soon.

Almost finished sweater

Almost finished sweater
Originally uploaded by Loretta.

This is my next to last finished project. Gee if I did this in reverse chronological order I'd almost have a knitting log. Aside from the difficulty of located all of my knitted pieces, and the time involved, it's a great idea.

Anyway, this sweater is made from Reynold's Lopi from the Lopi Toggle Cardigan pattern. I started it this spring and then somehow between the bottom color chart on the sleeves and finishing the unpatterned body, I lost the pattern. I even lost the copies I made of it to enlarge the tiny little writing and the tiny little chart. I spent many hours looking for the pattern. I even looked in all of my knitting books because I have a habit of tucking single sheets inside of books. No luck.

So I finally decided to just buy another copy of the pattern so I could finish the darn thing. It was worth it, because the sweater is fabulous.

I did change my mind about the closure and will sew in a zipper instead of the toggle buttons called for in the pattern. I haven't been to my local sit & knit for a while, but I'm glad I went this week because I got some great zipper sewing in tips from Frank, a fisherman & knitter, who knits the traditional Salish Coast/Cowichan sweaters. I might even put in some side seam pockets. Which leads me to a question. Is a sweater ever really done?

Cats and yarn

Smokey snuggling yarn
Originally uploaded by Loretta.

As much as I love knitting, my cat, Smokey, loves yarn.

Alas, poor...

Alas, poor...
Originally uploaded by Loretta.

This felted skull scarf is Yorrick from Knitty.com. I knit it from Babajoes Woolpak which felts quite nicely. I gave it to my Anatomy & Physiology professor who is now using it not only to keep her neck warm, but to make the other Bio profs jealous. I liked it so much that I made a garter stitch version for myself. The GS version went a lot faster, but I think I like the original better. I may just make another one from Classic Elite Lush, the yarn called for in the original pattern. But mine will be in a pale green 1) because I already have the yarn and 2) because the real human bones that we study in A&P lab look a bit pale greenish to me.

OK I'm just figuring out how this works

Bear with me

Inspired by Sophie

Seeing my friend Sophie's knitting blog makes me think I need to do this. I'm not good at keeping a knitting journal, even though I recommend the practice to my knitting students. I've been knitting for around 30 years (some of them continuously).

I started as a kid with a bunch of library books. I don't know where I got the idea that I wanted to knit. My mother's hobby of choice has always been sewing. But I knew only one person who did knit, a school friend's mom. I was way too shy to ask her to teach me to knit. So I turned to my reliable old friend the library. I checked out every book I could find on knitting. It took me a while to figure out a method. I thought that everything started with ribbing, so I learned ribbing first. Talk about doing things the hard way. No one was there to tell me otherwise. I found out years later, and many books later, that the method I taught myself now has a name, "combination knitting". It is described in the self-published Confessions of a Knitting Heretic by Annie Modesitt. I never ran into the "knitting nazis" that Annie describes in her book who would tell me I was knitting "wrong", because, being an introvert, I never exposed myself to such public display.

Throughout junior high, high school and college, I never had much money to spend on yarn. But there were always well meaning adults who would give me their leftovers. And there was always the library for more books about knitting. I probably spent more time reading about knitting than actually knitting, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

After college and all the way on the other side of the continent I discovered three things that changed my knitting life; 1) REAL yarn stores; 2) Maggie Righetti's and Elizabeth Zimmerman's books (you guessed it, at the public library); and 3) Patternworks mail order catalog, at the time called Hard-To-Find Things for Knitters. Maggie took me down the path of continental knitting and really looking at my own work. Elizabeth Zimmerman opened my eyes to many things, not the least of which was the beauty of circular knitting. My Knitter's Rule Jr from Patternworks got me thinking about the correct gauge and actually making things that fit. I still was not to have any contact with other knitters until I moved to Washington state 8 years down the road.