Friday, August 9, 2013

No time to talk ...

Wow, I haven't had time to visit or talk to myself or anyone else! Too much to do, exploring web sites, finishing my swatches for Lesson 3 in Basics, Basics, Basics and building my Knitting Library from eBay. Every day when the mail arrives it is just like a holiday. I will have to make something for that nice mail lady, just as soon as I have time to knit again.

I did a little project where I collected knitting needles from eBay for a non-profit and that was a lot of fun. I would get the lots of needles and then go through them and catalog them for size. I found a couple that were more a collectors item and I sent those to the gal, Susan, who is doing the history project Knitting Needle History.

I used Elaine's web site, Knitting Fool, to find a pattern for the final project of Basics, Basics, Basics. That was so amazing! I knew I only had 30 stitches to work with, as the lesson stated, and that it had to be lace or cables. I went to the site, picked the category for finding stitches by number in the pattern, then picked lace and cable (why not go for both) and then picked the closest number. I found a beautiful pattern with written instructions as well as a completed chart. Now I will enter it in my knitSpeaker app and I'm golden.

I had all my swatches blocked. Yes, I am now unblocked about my blocking. My husband set up a room, we call it the rock room because it has a rock floor and is of no use because it is either too hot or too cold and is too small to hold a chair. Then I took five of my magic COCO Knits knitting blocks and placed one-inch square red gingham on them. I swear the gingham was the magic. Something about not staring at a blank block gave me the confidence to lay the swatch down and start pinning. Hey, whatever works, right?

So, I gotta go. I have to redo one of my swatches, the cable. I don't know how, but one of my cables came out different than the other one. I could have called it a design element, but I don't think Arenda would have bought that one. I also have a bit more research to do, so watch for more activity on the reference page.

Happy Knitting!