Knitting Tips

Thank heavens there are lots of smart people in the world, especially smart knitters, because their clever discoveries are what help me survive the struggles of learning to knit.

I'm pretty much a self-taught knitter, in that I've learned mainly from knitting books, knitting blogs, on-line videos, and such.

My first knitting project, three years ago, was a baby afghan. I figured it would be best to start with an afghan because it had four straight sides, so I wouldn't have to worry about creating a curve or anything fancy like that.  I chose a design with a three-row repeat. I figured that would be manageable, too.

Little did I realize that within the 3 rows would be 7-stitch repeats. Oh, mercy. I'd start a row with the best intentions in the world, but by the time I neared the end of it, I'd realize I'd screwed up the stitch repeats somewhere along the way. I'd ravel. I'd try again. 

Then someone told me to put markers after every 7 stitches along a given row. Voila! The pattern was now manageable. I just had to see to it that I did the correct stitches within the 7-stitch section. A new world opened to me. There was meaning in life again.

The latest voila! moment came last week. I read online that when knitting a design, it's wise to weave a different colored thread (crochet thread, dental floss, whatever) through the stitches every few rows. I'm working on a sweater with a 4-row repeat, so on the 4th row, which is a purl row, I go back and weave a length of crochet thread through it. That way, should I need to ravel back a few rows, I know that if I ravel back to the white thread, I'll be at the 4th row of the repeat and that I'll then commence with row #1 again. Does this make sense?

If you look carefully at the photo here, you'll perhaps see the white crochet thread woven through two of the rows.

To me it's a little bit of insurance, sanity insurance. It takes just a few minutes to weave that white thread in, and it's worth the time and effort.  

Dance Class

Yesterday I had the distinct honor of attending Miss V's dance class. Miss V., shown in these photos in black leotard and a black crocheted covering (a snood, in other words) on her hair bun, was totally focused and involved. 

That's more than I can say for some of the other aspiring young ballerinas/tap dancers: there was the one who suffered a total meltdown the minute she walked into the studio and never did recover enough to participate; the one who was every where, doing whatever, and even spent time in the time-out chair, and the ones who seemed to be marching to the beat of a different drummer, as they say.
But Miss V was nothing if not determined to nail these steps and movements, come you-know-what or high water. 

This was the third lesson the students had attended. The dance instructor, ever the optimist, assured me I'd see tremendous change...for the better...in them come recital time in the spring. They do have a way to go until then!

I was impressed with Miss M., the dance instructor. She knows how to keep the children engaged, if they're at all engage-able, and how to have fun with them. She apparently has eyes all around her head, because she could spot a shoe lace that needed tying, a ne'er-do-well who needed time-out-chair sitting, or a shy dancer who simply needed a hug of encouragement.

I can't wait to go back to the studio in a few weeks to see how far the children have come. I suspect I'll be amazed. They're only two and three years old, after all.

After Apple-Picking

...with apologies to Robert Frost.

We went apple-picking at a nearby orchard today and came home with a large bag of McIntoshes. The Red Delicious will be ready in a couple of weeks, so we'll go back for those, since they're actually our favorite eating apple.

The apple trees are loaded with apples; it's a banner year for apples in much of Maine, although some orchards suffered damage during our summer of heavy downpours and high winds.

As you can see from these photos, the plums and pumpkins are also in abundance. 

...and so are the pumpkin climbers.

There's nothing like a fresh apple, straight from the tree, to enjoy in the car on the ride home.

Thinking of Stephanie Nielson

On The Today Show earlier this week, I heard the story of Stephanie Nielson, a 27-year-old mother who, with her husband Christian, was badly burned in a plane crash in mid-August. Stephanie suffered burns over 83% of her body; her husband suffered burns over 30% of his body; the pilot was killed in the crash. Stephanie has been given a 60-70% chance of survival; Christian is expected to survive.

In addition to the fact that Stephanie has an incredibly long struggle ahead of her, she is an unusually beautiful person, judging from her writings in her blog. I'm not talking superficial, external beauty (although she has plenty of that), but beauty of the soul.

Stephanie and her husband have four young children, ages two to six. Her blog, which I have just begun reading since hearing of her plight on The Today Show, reveals her joy in life and joy in raising her four children. Apparently she had a following of blog readers all over the world, and those bloggers are now joining forces to aid Stephanie in any way they can.

Meanwhile, Stephanie's family is taking care of the couple's four children, and they are also re-publishing her earlier blog writings. The announcement of the crash can be found here.

If you would like to help Stephanie and Christian Nielson, you can make a donation here. Just click on "Donate to NieNie." (The cJaneRun blog is written by Stephanie's sister Jane, who is caring for three of the four Nielson children.) Jane mentions in her blog that Stephanie underwent her first major surgery this week, a skin graft, and so far the surgery seems to have gone well. She is still in an induced coma. 

Let's keep Stephanie, Christian, and their children in our thoughts and prayers.

Hot off the Needles

I finished the February Lady Sweater just a few minutes ago. In fact, I got up at 5:00 this morning because I couldn't wait to put the finishing touches on this project. 

I'm pleased with the results. It was enjoyable to knit except when I made a mistake in the pattern repeats and spent several hours, consuming one late afternoon and the next morning, trying to figure out which row I'd knit incorrectly, thus throwing off the entire pattern on one sleeve. 

I thought I'd found the error and corrected it no less than four times, but each time I was wrong. So I raveled, knit, raveled, knit, raveled...and finally got it right.

When I first showed you this project on September 12, I mentioned that there were 1804 knitters on Ravelry working on this same pattern. I checked Ravelry a few minutes ago, and there are now 1881 knitters who are making or have finished the February Lady Sweater.

 1881 plus one.

Passionflower floozy?

I get such a charge out of the blossoms on my passionflower. They're a tad over the top, don't you think? Like a woman who doesn't know when she has applied a sufficient amount of make-up and jewelry.

I was surprised to read that the passionflower has medicinal uses, so perhaps we can forgive her over-the-top appearance.

February Lady's Sweater

My newest knitting project is the February Lady Sweater. This is one of the hottest knitting patterns in the knitting world, apparently. On Ravelry.com there are currently 1,804 February Sweaters either on the needles or completed!

I'm enjoying this pattern a lot. I found it on the 'net: here and have been waiting for the inspiration and yarn to start it. 

The inspiration arrived last week; the yarn, I discovered, had been here waiting for me all along. I'd knit myself a "t-shirt" style sweater earlier this summer and hated the darned thing. In fact, I'd never bothered to sew the front, back, and sleeves together because I hated it so much. It just seemed baggy and heavy, and I knew I'd never wear it. Every time I looked into my knitting basket and saw the unfinished sweater lying there, I felt guilty that I'd wasted so much time and money on a failed project.

It's a failed project no more! The yarn is now happily being used for the February Lady Sweater,  an adaptation of one of Elizabeth Zimmermann's patterns, the February Baby Sweater. I've knit one other pattern by Zimmermann, and it, too, was enjoyable to knit: the Baby Surprise Jacket. You can see one of my Baby Surprise Jackets here, if you scroll down.

Here's a close-up of the design in the February Sweater. The front and back are knit as one piece. I'll go back and add the sleeves before long.

So far, so good. I don't think I'll want to ravel this one.

Meanwhile, I received a birth announcement from a former neighbor today. Tawyna was a little girl when she lived next door to us. I think she was about one-year-old when her parents moved to our neighborhood, and she was about ten when the family moved out of state. Gosh, we hated to see Tawnya and her little sister move away! I spent the day of their move hibernating in my home because I was doing a lot of crying.

Tawnya's a married woman now. We received a letter from her today; tucked inside was a photo of her little girl, Simaya, born August 13. I see a February Baby Sweater on my knitting needles very soon.