Are you a keeper or a user?

I've been reading the Yarn Harlot's book, Stephanie Pearl McPhee Casts Off. Although the book doesn't seem to have been generally well-liked, I thought it was good.

One thing it made me think about was how we approach knitted items. Do you store them away, like an heirloom, or use them as you would anything else?

I'm most definitely a user. If I knit something for myself, you can almost bet I'll be wearing it tomorrow. To me, putting it in a drawer to "save" isn't any fun. And what am I saving it for anyway? My husband tends to be the same way. He wore his bright red and yellow knit socks to the grocery store recently -- with shorts. Can you imagine the looks he got?

When he got home, he proudly told me people were looking and admiring his socks! Heh...

My mom is just the opposite. She rarely wears what I knit her. She has a tendency to put away anything she really likes to "save" it. I have trouble understanding that; it just doesn't seem like she'd get any enjoyment out of it at all.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

New Blogger Feature

I'm trying out Blogger's new feature that allows you to write a post and schedule it for a future time. I'm writing this Saturday night and scheduling it to come up Sunday. We'll see if it works as smoothly as Wordpress does.

This is one of the features I think Blogger was really lacking. If I'm going away or know I'll be busy, I sometimes schedule posts to publish on my wordpress blog, but I never could do it here. If this works well, then I can see this helping me to keep a more regular posting schedule.

Shawl update

First off, here's the obligatory spring flowers shot. Aren't they pretty? I have no idea what they are, but they were blooming last weekend at the hotel where we were staying.


Speaking of hotel, that's it.

Okay, a shawl update. It's coming along really well. The pattern is North Sea, from the folk shawls book I've mentioned here before.

I'm using Knit Picks Gossamer, which is a lace weight yarn. The color is trail, which is a nice mix of earth tones (rust, tan, green, brown). Like I said before, the pattern is super easy, but it's knitting up to look more complex than it really is.

Here are some pictures of it (thanks to my husband, who's much better with the camera than I am!) Try to imagine that it's blocked already. Lace does look a bit crappy while it's on the needles, doesn't it?



The pattern is hard to see unblocked, but the color is pretty accurate. I'm pleased with it.

We almost had a disaster right after the shot. Our dog got her foot tangled in the yarn and we had to do some quick grabbing and untangling. She has a tendency to flip out a bit if she gets into the yarn, and I had visions of all this work getting unraveled and dragged all over the house.

I need to lie down.

At least someone can relax

That's actually a picture of TWO cats. They're almost the same color and curled up together. She wasn't terribly happy that I woke her with the flash.

We've been down with a cold, after being out of town for a couple of days. It was a trip I'd been looking forward to, and I was lucky not to get sick till after we got back, but still.

I'm still working on the shawl, which is coming along nicely. It's the North Sea shawl from the Folk Shawls book. I didn't realize it when I picked it, but it's a simple pattern to memorize (one line!), and it's turning out very pretty. I couldn't stand it; I had to show my mom to be sure she liked the color. She does. If you've never done lace before, then this is a perfect one for a beginner. Not only is it an ultra simple pattern, there's also no edging to do, so that's even simpler. It's a rectangle (which I prefer anyway). The only downside is that two panels have to be grafted together at the end. If you don't like doing that, then that might be an issue. I'm a really slow grafter, but I can do it.

Here are a couple grafting links (also called kitchener) that might help. I have very little patience, and if I can do it, anyone can.

Knitty
Bagatell

Both of those sites have great pictures and cover grafting stockinette.

Grafting stockinette and garter

This one doesn't have as many pictures, but once you get the idea, you shouldn't need them. The nice thing here is that it covers grafting garter stitch as well as stockinette.

I'll try to get some good pictures of the shawl not that it's no longer a secret. My daffodils are gone, but my consolation prize is that my lilac bushes are almost bloomed. I promise pictures of those too when they're fully out.

The Things I Say

So far today, I have said all this to my dog....

Don't eat the trash!
Don't eat the rabbit turds!
Do NOT drink out of the toilet!

I sound like a blithering idiot.

Unreality

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote. Sorry about that; things just got away from me.

I finished my husband's first sock and started the second, but no pics for now. I'm too lazy to run upstairs and grab the camera. I promise pics later though.

I decided to do a shawl for my mom for mother's day. I did a little figuring last night, and I'm only about 1/6 of the way finished. I have only a little over a month to finish it, wash and block it. Am I being unrealistic? Let's hope not.