Thursday, March 5, 2009

Runner girl still knits, but can't prove it

I have fallen deeply into dislike with my camera. In the old days (um, that would be "old" as in "last year") I would knit something, struggle with connections to my computer, attempt various times to upload pictures I had taken and after several tries get to view my completed or in-progress knitting projects. I finally got fed up with it not working smoothly, got fed up with the stitch details being blurred, got fed up with colors being on some other spectrum than reality. One of these days I'll do a little research and find a camera that is (inexpensive and) easy to use and that takes good pictures of close-up details.

Except for the long bike ride days, my knitting has continued unabated all winter. After a long ride my hands are too sore or stiff to knit; I've ended up making more mistakes than progress. These past months I've completed several pairs of fingerless mitts, a pair of gauntlets, many hats, a few shawls and several scarves. Right now I'm knitting up a scarf/shawl (a "scawl"? or a "sharf"?) with yarn from Stitches. I didn't make it to the show but I put in an order with a friend who has the best eye for color that I know. Over the fall and winter I knit a shawl with yarn from Stitches 2008. It was the pink/gray hunk of superwash merino from Tess' Designer Yarns and it was a pleasure to work with and it's a joy to wear (and very pretty to boot). I asked my friend to pick up more of that yarn for me, and specified a couple of colors or a range of colors. She brought me the English Sheepdog (and a red to be knit later) and I hurried home the night I received it and wound it right into a huge cake.
I cast on for the Opera Scarf, a pattern I've done before. I wanted something simple but beyond garter and not a plain rib. It doesn't get much easier than a 3 stitch repeat on a 1 row pattern. I thought the yarn would be perfect for the pattern; just enough body to hang right and soft enough to drape. After several rows I decided that it needed a bigger needle size so I frogged it. I re-cast on and after several rows decided I wanted it wider. Re-frogging and again re-casting and now I've got several inches on the needles. I'm still not sure it's wide enough. I'll let it go another couple of inches and decide then. It's such an easy pattern that I don't mind redoing. Over and over. Of course, at my speed it should be done in time for next winter's chill.

Now I have to just work on that whole "runner girl" thing.

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