David's Scarf

Last week saw David and me prowling the shelves at Stitch House in Dorchester, looking for a yarn with which to make him a scarf. He had said, when he asked me to undertake this project, that he'd had a green scarf that his grandmother had made for him when he was a child. It was a variegated green yarn, and the way he described it made me think instantly of acrylic.

I don't knit in acrylic.

No, not even baby things. For those I'll use cotton.

So with green yarn in mind, we looked at the shelves. What he ended up buying, Noro Kogarashi (51% silk, 49% wool), had some green in it, but like every other Noro yarn I've knitted with (Silk Garden and Kureyon), the colours were varied and moved from one to another. I was a bit surprised. But there is green in the yarn, and it's knitting up beautifully. I'm using a 1x1 rib, to give the effect of stockinette, but without the curl that stockinette inevitably has.

I've got about a foot of knitting done. The scarf starts with green, merges to brown, purple, grey, and back to two different shades of green. And I've only encountered one knot in it so far!

Detail of the golden brown merging into the purple and then the grey.

David is a newbie to knitting, and I am not sure he knows what he's getting into with this stuff. When I've got a few more inches done on it, I'll send him a picture to see if he likes it.

Back In Line

OK, I've been absent for a month. So sue me. I have been working on several projects and haven't finished any of them (well, I did finish a chemo cap last night, but I haven't photographed it yet). A friend of mine has asked me to knit him a scarf and today we visited the Stitch House to get some yarn. He picked a lovely Noro Kogarashi (51% silk, 49% wool). I've knit with Noro before (who hasn't?), but never with Kogarashi. We balled the two skeins whilst at the shop.

Here I am balling the second hank of the Kogarashi. The first one is between me and the swift.

We talked about patterns and looked at pictures of different ones, but he didn't think any of them were his style. I think with this yarn we'll go with a simple 1x1 rib, because it looks enough like stockinette and will show off the amazing colours of this yarn. I will post pictures of it as it comes along.

Frustrated!

I have been kniting another feather and fan lace scarf (two of three), and was almost done. I looked at it carefully, and noticed where I did a repeat of rows four and one right next to each other. I am the type of knitter that if there is a mistake, my eyes are instantly drawn to it, and I can't see anything else. I'll look at the item, and see the mistake. I'll look over the rest of the item, and my eyes will instantly be drawn back to the mistake.

So I frogged it back. Probably 15 iterations of the pattern (it's a four-row pattern). I picked up the stitches again, and just didn't have the heart to tink back a row to get everything aligned correctly (I also was supposed to have 36 stitches, and I have 38 -- oopsie). I'm sure it will work out perfectly, but i was sooooo close to being done. I had plans for finishing it that night, and sewing in the loose ends. Now it is just sitting on my bed, mocking me.

I hate being mocked, especially by an inanimate object.

I will address the problems with this scarf tonight. I'll re-knit the dozens of rows I just frogged. I'll finish this scarf, probably by the end of the week. But I'll be looking daggers at it the entire time, daring it to repeat rows out of order. Simply put, there are certain things up with which I shall not put.

I just returned from New Orleans, where I was celebrating Mardi Gras. Beads, daquiris, and yes, yarn! I took some time out from the parades and celebrations to visit Quarter Stitch to peruse the yarn there. I found a bunch of things I wanted to take home with me, but settled on four skeins of Malabrigo Rios, two in Ravelry Red and two in Purple Mystery. I already know what will be done with the purple, but the red skeins, which greatly appeal to me, are still without a project. But that red! It grabs you and shakes you.

I did a bit of knitting on the plane down to Mardi Gras, but never did any while actually in New Orleans. There were beads to be caught! Daquiris to be drunk! Hell to be raised! And I had a terrific time.

I'm back home in Boston now, with much to mull over. At the top of the list, what will I do with that red yarn. The secondary questions, what I'll do with the rest of my life, is really not as important. The beads are put away, the yarn added to the stash, and real life once again rears its ugly head.

Bad knitter, no yarn!

I've not posted much recently, for a variety of reasons. Partly I haven't done a whole lot of knitting (I didn't pick up the needles between 3 Feb and 10 Feb) in the last few weeks. My mind has been elsewhere, and I've felt no call to the needles. Until this week. Finished a hat for Joel and started a scarf for Alex and worked on Carlene's lace scarf and made something that needs to be felted (with more to come -- plans, baby, I've got BIG plans!) and looked over a hat pattern for Tom and thought about making a sweater for myself (never mind the six or seven or eight sweaters I already have on the needles) and thought about a lacy scarf or shawl in the gorgeous Shibui mohair/silk I got and thought that I'd like to get more Shibui mohair/silk, but in green and maybe that gorgeous cobalt blue and did some prep work for my trip to New Orleans and can I think of anything to add without the use of a comma?

Deep breath!

I do love a run-on sentence.

One of the big things looming on my calendar is a trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Of course I shall take some time out of a busy schedule, filled with parades, swamp tours, plantation tours, carousing, and dreams of fornication to visit Quarter Stitch, that delightful yarn (and needlepoint) store in the French Quarter. I might even buy some stuff. Or not, since money is tight. But I'll probably come away with something lovely. I always manage to find yarn that I can't find at home.

I'm bringing my computer to Mardi Gras. I'll post any new yarn I pick up. And my on-the-plane project is a chemo cap in cotton for the sister-in-law of a friend. I've got the pattern picked out, the cotton yarn, in a beautiful dusty rose, and the needles all put aside, ready to be placed in my backpack and keep me busy whilst in the air. And on the ground at the layover. And while my buddies are sleeping in (am I the only person who really doesn't need much sleep during MG? I believe that I'll get plenty of sleep when I'm dead) I can get some knitting done. Maybe. If I'm not out getting beignets and cafe-au-lait.

By the way, the Quarter Stitch still does not have a website. I think I'll speak to the owner about that. It's such a delightful store, it needs an on-line presence.

Finished Object: Brad's Scarf

This was a very quick knit, a scarf for my friend Brad. It is made of Araucania Coliumo yarn, 70% wool, 30% silk. It is very soft, and was knit in a 1X1 rib, on size US 11 needles. It knit up very quickly, and I love that it looks like stockinette, and you can't see the line where there was a colour change.

Taking a page from the Brooklyn Tweed Striped Noro Scarf, I carried the yarn up the side so I wouldn't have dozens of loose ends to weave in. It took me a time or two to figure out the best way to do this (it's not like I'm a professional knitter), but once I did, it went quite swimmingly. I will mail Brad his scarf this week.

The Manly Art of Knitting

As a guy who knits, I sometimes encounter. . . incredulity that I am playing with sticks and string. When I walk into an unfamiliar yarn store I am often confronted by a bemused clerk, wondering if I've wandered into the wrong place. When I wandered into the yarn store in Doylestown  a couple weeks ago, I heard one woman call out to me, "We're all ladies here!" I refrained from discussing the difference between ladies and women, hesitant to be accused of classism. However, as soon as I identify myself as a knitter, I am treated like a long lost member of the clan, the extended family, the mishpokhah of knitters.

One of the guys from Nine Inch Needles (our men's knitting group) has been known to knit on the subway! He says that if he is knitting on the subway then no one sits next to him. I rarely knit on the trains, usually because I almost always fall asleep when riding the trains. However, the trains can get pretty crowded, so maybe if I knit on the trains I'll get a bit more room to myself.

Or is that selfish?

One of the frustrations I have is that when a new book of knitting patterns comes out, there are usually only one or two patterns for men. I'm not inclined to buy a book with 15 patterns and only one of them is something I can knit for myself. There are several books written specifically with men's patterns as their theme, but almost all of them are written to the woman knitter making something for the men in her life -- husband, son, father, boyfriend, fiance, brother -- but with a very few exceptions, not written for men who knit.

I get it. We are a very small demographic. I go to a knitting night on Fridays, and I am almost always the only man who shows up. I like knitting with the ladies, but sometimes it would be nice if another guy showed up. But men knit. Really, we do. You'd believe it if you could see my yarn stash. We know that historically there were places men knit, like on whaling ships out of New England. There were long periods of down time between chasing whales and rendering their blubber. The hour were filled with crafts, knitting included.

And we know that knitting is a manly art. What could be more manly than a cowboy? That very icon of American manliness.

This book, from 1975, can be found on Amazon for a mere $175.99 (new), or $79.95 or $129.49 (used). Something tells me it isn't something I'll be adding to my library any time soon. But I like the idea that the Marlboro Man could whip up a quick neckerchief between drags on his cigarettes and while making all those little dogies git along.

Maybe I'll start knitting in public more than I currently do ('cause maybe knitting in hipster cafes doesn't really count). If anyone gives me any shit, I'll look 'em right in the eye and say, "Knitting. It's a manly art."