Monthly Archives: November 2007

Portland Knitting

2 Replies

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Portland (the Vintage Plaza), listening to the rain and relaxing. Tim and I came down for a two-day get-away, time to relax and catch up on sleep without the kids. This morning we went to Powells and I added to my library with Deborah Newton's Designing Knitwear (Powells link, Amazon link) and Ann Feitelson's The Art of Fair Isle Knitting (Powells link, Amazon link) as well as looking at some others that I'll put on my Christmas wish list. We also added some non-knitting books to the library of course!

Lunch at the Rogue brewpub, followed by a visit to Knit Purl, lots of lovely yarns, friendly service. I got some Baby Ull for a cardigan for my daughter that I'll start after the New Year, it will be my first Fair Isle project - I've always been a little nervous of colourwork so I figured a size 3 cardigan was a good place to start. I also stopped in at the little needlework shop next door (The Playful Needle, no we address), also very friendly service, even though all I bought was a magnetic chart-holder for my needlework charts. Apparently they do blocking and make needlework into cushions, bags etc, so maybe I'll do that with some of the needlepoint I've had languishing around the house for years, to finally get it into a form where it's not just sitting in a cupboard.

Only one person knitting in the cafe where we had coffee; not many coffee shops around downtown apart from the ubiquitous Starbucks. And although I have nothing against Starbucks, I do like patronising the smaller places where possible. I must look on delocator before we go out tomorrow.

It's still raining outside, but even so it's time to venture out again.

Madrona 2007

Leave a reply

Yup, there were a few glitches in the Madrona Fiber Arts registration system, but they seem to be cleared up now and on the second time around I got most of the classes I wanted. I'm doing the classes on knitting different shapes on double-pointed needles, double knitting, and intarsia. The latter two are with Lucy Neatby, I have one of her DVDs and like it so I was glad to get into her classes. I know nothing about Margaret Radcliffe, the instructor for knitting shapes, other than what I've read on the Madrona site.

I'll hang around the rest of the time and watch people and go to the market etc. I've never actually been to a fiber arts festival before so I don't know what to expect; fortunately I'm going with a couple of friends. It should be fun!

Seed Stitch Swatch

Leave a reply

I finally finished the seed stitch swatch for TKGA Level 1. It's hard to get an even fabric with no holes. I don't know how many rows total I ripped back to redo because on holding it up to the light I could see some obvious hole. In the end, I found I had to consciously relax, and rotate the stitches on the needle after each stitch to get the right amount of yarn in the knit/purl/knit transitions. It's still not perfect, but I think it's as good as I'm going to get it. Tammy and Louisa did some quality control at our Ravelry knit meeting, which helped my sanity on getting it done. And as soon as I got home I put it in the folder, to make sure no little fingers or sharp claws get to it.

I'll take a photo when it's blocked and post it.

Swatches and Yarns

Leave a reply

I signed up for TKGA's Master Knitting Level 1. So far it's been more absorbing than I expected, and I'm only doing the swatches! I'll get to the questions and report later. I've been practising cast-ons and increases trying to get them to look right before doing the final swatch. In a way it's a lot freer than knitting a real project, these little swatches don't take long but they do take concentration.

Now I'm wondering whether I'm using the right yarn. The LYS I went into to get yarn only really had Mission Falls 1824 wool in a light-coloured worsted weight superwash, and it doesn't seem to hold the stitch definition very well. And it looks horrible if I need to frog or tink it. I don't have anything light-coloured in worsted weight in my stash; it's all darker or double knitting weight. Or something other than wool, and I want to use superwash wool as it blocks up nicely.

My current plan is to knit a couple more swatches and see how they look after blocking, and if need be I'll redo in something else. And at some stage I need to take some photos and post them and see if I can get comments on how to improve them before submitting...