Merlot Nuss - almost finished

After knitting three cowls and a hat (not shown...must take a photo next time I see my son) and finishing a skein of wool  (that I started in January!) , I made great progress on my Merlot Nuss. It is all put together and blocked, awaiting buttons.

Being cat blocked, as usual! I had to pause in my attempt to insert the second sleeve, awaiting a very cute incredibly adorable cat to wake up.

And here I thought I hadn't hadn't knit much in 2011!

I am torn between knitting up the newly spun yarn into another cowl (another one! yes, this one for myself) and finishing some stitching I started in early December. I didn't get it finished for this Christmas, but if I start now, I can stock pile for Christmas 2012.

Potato Chip Spinning (credit to the Knitmores)

I had places to go and people to see, quite literally, but my spinning wheel was looking at me, and saying, "Just try some Navajo plying. Just a few minutes."  The phone rang, I needed to get the shop to take the kits over that I had intended to drop off in the morning. I was supposed to be in Don Mills by 5, to be back to the shop by 7, 8 at the latest. This is all very difficult to accomplish if one is mesmerized by the siren song of the Navajo ply.

It simply goes on and on, with no end until you come to the end of the bobbin.

If you thought "I just have to finish this row" could suck you in, Navajo plying is an order of magnitude above that.

Late to the shop, late to the party, no hope of getting back to the shop that night for knit night. But Navajo ply complete






I need to credit the Knitmores (knitmoregirls.blogspot.com) with the term Potato Chip Knitting (it is basically knitting you just can't put down or can't stop until the bag is finished, so to speak.).  Hence, Navajo plying is Potato Chip spinning...just can't put it down until all of the spinning is finished.

Oubliette

ou·bli·ette

noun

a secret dungeon with an opening only in the ceiling, as in certain old castles

 

What an apt word!

 

Thanks to the ladies at Kniterary and Knit Night, I no longer have a Maze gone terribly wrong, I have an Oubliette. 

 

Oubliette! What a lovely word!  Everything sounds better in French, or with a British accent.

Leaving Well Enough Alone

There are times you should just move on!

While laying out "the maze" I noticed there were a few sections that were enclosed, as in, you can't get to those lines, and if you were air lifted into those sections you couldn't get out. I was puzzled, referred to the diagram I had printed from the pattern, I had followed it meticulously. I moved on. 

Geri faved the maze blanket and then faved Wooly Thoughts original.  Side by side they looked different...but why?  I checked the original.

OMG....I had handed the 4 triangles to Kate, asked her to glue them together (totally unnecessary, now that I look at it, because there is a one piece complete drawing in the instructions!!!!).  She dutifully glued, and I dutifully knit, and for 103,584 stitches and countless views of the diagram I never asked myself about this. Not once.

The fact is, the 4 triangles could have been glued together in 6 possible ways.  Hmmm, I wonder what they each look like. But I digress.

Had I not been so terribly clever and knit the blanket all in one piece, I could simply unseam, rearrange and reseam. 

I will QA any future gluing. 

I am dizzy.

I will not think of this, I will move on. It is not perfect, it is unique. Man, is it ever unique!

Heaven help anyone who is airlifted onto this blanket.

I could steek it and cut it and sew it back together. Now that is really crazy!

On too socks and other things.

The Maze is Finished, Birdhouses Stitched, Sampler of Teas Begun

The Maze is finished...the only thing I would have done differently is to work the last green and last black in the round. I decided to sew the seam rather than work in the round so that I could knit every row (purling over 1200 stitches seemed way too painful), but I should have explored a few more options and avoided that final tiny, not quite perfect seam.  But, it is finished, 23 days ahead of schedule. The "princess" declared "that's a nice blanket", and assumed ownership as soon as photos were taken over at Kniterary today.

 Cleo couldn't wait to try it out (she failed at the maze (she's no mouse), but she was quite successful at sleeping).

And now I am on to other things. I have photos of the Seasonal Birdhouses, finished a few weeks ago, ready for final finishing, but the blanket took precedence, so I think I will block it tomorrow and prepare for the edge.  Meanwhile, I started Sampler of Teas by Lisa Cowell. It is coming along nicely. The letters should be finished tomorrow, and perhaps even some of the teapots stitched.