Knitting in Transit

Both my mom and sister have made comments lately that led me to believe I was not posting enough to satisfy their insatiable curiosity for details about my life. I guess I'll have to up my game a bit and fill the blog with more minutiae about my life, because there isn't a lot of knitting or transit related news to tell most of the time. Today is a different story. This morning my bus was almost hit by a car trying to make a left turn in front of the bus. It was an SUV of some sort, and he must have REALLY misjudged the turn or the speed of the bus, because I was sitting in the middle of the bus and he came within inches of smashing into the bus right outside my window. I'm glad he didn't hit the bus, because I have been on the bus when it was hit by a car before, and I didn't much feel like filling out the little card showing where I was sitting and what I saw. I just wanted to get home and watch my new West Wing DVD from Netflix. While I did this, I started a...

I just spent what can only be described as quite possibly one of the most perfect weekends of my life, thus far. I'm racking my brain trying to think of a weekend that has felt more "right" and I just can't. I think this was one of those rare life moments where everything comes together to create contentment. A perfect blend of good food, friendly strangers, physical and mental activity, and a person to travel with that makes you happy. David and I spent the weekend in Lanesboro, MN and thereabouts. We loaded up our bikes, and in my case, way too much other stuff and headed out of town. How is it that I can pack so light for a 10 day trip to Ireland, but when I head 2 hours south, I pack as though I am leaving home for an indefinite period of time? We arrived in Lanesboro in the rain. We ducked in to the Pedal Pushers Cafe where we had the coffee and pie special for $1.99. Chocolate cream pie. Yum! I drew this lovely picture. If you look closely, you will...

I stayed up past my bedtime last night and finished up Petr. I finally said to myself, "Bah! It doesn't need to be square. It's big enough!" and I did the border and bound off. It's about 41"x31". A nice rectangle. As I looked at it last night, I thought about what a lovely pattern it is. Simple, but pretty. I like the way the decreases make a nice decorative diagonal line after the yarn-overs. As I looked closer, I thought, "Gee...you really can see where I started up again after not working on this for a year and a half". At first I thought it might be because the yarn had sat on the needles for so long. The I looked closer and realized that wasn't the case at all. When I picked this up again, I knew the pattern was something like, K4, YO, K2tog, on and on until you want to poke the knitting needle in your eye. Well, as I looked at it, I realized it must have been K4, YO, SSK. This gave that nice decorative, diagonal line. K2t...

Petr is huge. Or it will be huge. I measured the width the other day, just to see how far I had to go, and it is 41" across. That's over three feet. At last measure, I had 25" in length, so I've got a ways to go. I'm getting 5 rows per inch, so if I do 5 rows a day, it will be done in a little more than two weeks. Here's hoping! I've got 4 rows so far today. Tomorrow is the Little Guy's Birthday. He'll be three. He sure has changed from the days he got to be wrapped up like a burrito.

Wednesday I decided I was going to start knitting something. Something for me! Something using some of the lovely yarn I have. I've had my eye on the Asymmetrical Cabled Cardi for some time. The pattern calls for Malabrigo Worsted, which I happen to have. Time to get started. The pattern also calls for size 9 needles. Knowing that I always have to go down a needle size, I headed to the knitting closet to find my size 8 needles. This is when I realized I really need to organize. Could not find size 8 anywhere. I'm pretty sure I have multiple size 8 needles, even multiple size 8 circular needles, but where they got themselves off to, I have no idea. Then I realized that perhaps I was using some size 8s for the Petroleum Blanket . I called it this because it is made of acrylic yarn...a lovely blue Bernat Softee Baby. This particular blanket has been wrapped up inside a plastic bag since March 2008. It didn't even get the dignity of a plastic Target bag. Nope...j...

At least for now. If you are tired of looking at Marley Hats knit in green, blue, and yellow, imagine how I feel about knitting them. Not really...it's a great hat to knit. I'm sure I'll make more in the future. I still have LOTS of the Tahki Cotton Classic sitting around...perfect amounts to do one or two rows of a hat. I do have another plan for them though that I will get to in a moment. Why do I love the Marley hat so much? Like all baby hats, it is easy and quick. I don't completely follow the pattern, but it is fun to play with different textures in the same hat. The style of the hat is perfect for a boy or girl. Switch the colors up a little and you get a whole new look. And the Marley Topper...this is what makes the Marley Hat. The topper is so fun and cute. I have to admit though, it is a pain to make. I have watched the tutorial video , and she makes it look so easy. Every time I make one, I struggle with getting it on the hat. Even with that, it...

...is a really ugly scarf. I'll get to that in a minute. I had two more days of my fiber and fabric structure class on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday we spent most of the day talking about man-made fibers. We talked about fibers that are made from reconstituted cellulose (an example is rayon) and synthetic fibers (such as the much maligned acrylic). I don't have my notes with me, so I won't try to go into any details. Our instructor encouraged us to arrange our fiber samples in an aesthetically pleasing manner. As you can see, I ignored that advice. We then moved on to talk about fabric structures - different weaves and knits and such - and different treatments for fibers. I found this all fascinating. I think others in the class were anxious to get to the hands on aspect of the class, but I was content to soak up all this information. I really wasn't in any hurry to be creative. You'll see why in a minute. For our class project, we each got a velvet scarf...

This morning, I brought my dad's sweater to class for show and tell. This is the lovely wool, cabled sweater I gave him about a year and a half ago. It really turned out nice. When I got on the bus this morning, I sat in front of a young woman knitting! Having already had some coffee, I was feeling friendly and asked her what she was working on. She was knitting a sleeve for a cardigan, in the round. So, then I asked her if I could show her something and proceeded to pull this big wool sweater out of my bag. I'm sure she thought I was nuts. She was very nice about it though and said it was beautiful. We chatted very briefly and then I went back to listening to my podcast and she knit. Maybe it isn't so crazy. We are both knitters after all...we should share more! I forgot my camera today so I cannot yet show you pics from class yesterday. I'll wait to blog about it until I have my camera.