Poem in my pocket

Happy first national Poem in Your Pocket Day! I love carrying around poetry--usually favorites such as Byron's "She Walks in Beauty" or Carroll's "Jabberwocky." Today, though, I wanted to discover something new, and since one point of today's celebrations is to share, check out e.e. cummings' "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls"--it mentions knitting.

And the yarn

This is the wonderful 2-ply worsted Jacobs yarn that I bought at the Meet the Sheep day from Robin at Meridian Jacobs. It's wonderfully tweedy-looking, due to the colors of wool on the sheep that she's woven together--it's not dyed--it's as the sheep grew it. I bought a bit of a darker color in case I don't have enough of the gray.

And this is the beautiful Fiber Creations yarn from Colleen; I'm thinking a big, warm scarf for winter bike rides to work along the Bay, and to wear in the repurposed warehouse where I work, and where the heat fails as often as the wind blows.

Meridian Jacobs

We had a great time at Meridian Jacobs' Meet the Sheep & Fiber Fun 2008 in Vacaville. After two really intense weeks, we didn't make any commitments or any plans for today; we decided that if we woke up feeling like going, we'd go. It was a beautiful spring morning, so after waffles, we went.

I was not only interested in meeting the lambs, but after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and hearing Michael Shuman on Alternative Radio discuss local economics in his book The Small-mart Revolution, I've been more interested in finding local yarn. Meridian Jacobs is only 54 miles from home, and the drive up there was almost worth the entire trip; the hills are not only green from the recent rain, but they're not sprinkled, they're sprayed with colorful flowers--the deep, red-purples surrounded the brilliant orange California poppies before fields of mustard yellows.

Robin was there telling us all about the sheep and the goats, and the kids who were there got to help bottle feed the baby goat (who, I believe, is two weeks old). The goats were incredibly friendly, licking and nibbling your fingers while you pet them, and her dogs Bonnie & Rusty were lovable, too. Some of the sheep didn't mind some attention and some petting, but some were shy. Robin's sheep are all Jacob sheep, and her friend Colleen was there with incredibly fluffy Romney and CVM sheep (Mopsy and friend!). Cedric loved watching the sheep in the open field, the sheep and goats in the barn, and even the two pigs.

Near the shop spinners and weavers were patiently explaining their craft to kids and adults alike, and Colleen was there with her Fiber Confections yarn. Many folks hung out there also with their picnic or takeout lunch. Did I buy some yarn? Oh, yes, thanks to the fortuitous arrival of our tax refunds (taking the sting out of having overpaid our 2007 taxes!).

How to not put the elephant's trunk in its ear

I had been mystified; the first time I knit this elephant, as you can see, the trunk was where its left ear should be! (The little legs are supposed to open at the inseam.) I had no idea what had gone wrong, and ended up frogging the whole head and starting over. This time I paid close attention, and the elephant's nose is going to be right where it should.

In the pattern, when you put the legs on to the needles, in the section called, "Body," there's this little bit: "Join double strand of main yarn with RS facing to the beginning of one needle." I'm working on dpns, and already had the yarn attached to one of the legs, thank you very much. That's the problem! The yarn is attached where the elephant's "family jewels" would be (or "gates of Venus"--these are very private elephants, who only reveal their gender post-adoption to their new caretakers, so I have no idea what gender they will turn out to be). The yarn should be at the hip--in the middle of one of the legs.

The solution? No need to clip yarn and reattach it. When knitting the head, just knit row five 75% of the way around--stop over the right shoulder. You're all lined up for the rest of the head, and the nose will show up where it's supposed to be.

Pattern source: "Lovable toys," In: Last-minute knitted gifts / Joelle Hoverson.

Pillow case, finished

It's done! Timson thinks it's very comfortable. I'm not letting anyone get too close, because then you'll see all the mistakes that were made on my first cutwork embroidery project.

I learned a lot; next time I'm going to try cutting out the eyelets before embroidering (and using a running stitch around the cut-out circle before embroidering the buttonhole stitch). Likewise, I'd like to cut out the areas that will take bars first, then embroider in the bars--maybe that way I won't cut so many bars!

Cutting the cutwork

The cutting was going so well--too well. It took a long time to feel comfortable; I had cut out about a quarter of the design before I was able to feel the scissors against the purl edge of the embroidery, and I thought I was able to feel the difference between cutting the thickness of the threads of the material versus the threads of the embroidery. I was so wrong--so overconfident! Timson is showing you just one place where this wasn't so, where I cut a bar.

So now I get to learn how to mend cutwork. For this project, I've been using Margaret Pierce's Cutwork (Heirloom Sewing v. 4) which luckily includes a paragraph called, "Repairing Bars." This gives me some comfort. Otherwise, except for the few areas where I've cut my bars (there are more!), the cutting out is going pretty well. It's going slowly but it's going--I don't find it as enjoyable as stitching. Next time I may follow some other directions I've read, to cut out certain sections ahead of time, like the small circles and the smaller areas that will be crossed by bars, and embroider them after the cutting.

Armhole shaping at last

One thing my husband and I have in common is a love for the look of fine gauge knitting, so the sweater that I began for him late last summer is on 3.0mm needles, out of Louet gems. I love the feel of the wool, but it's not the most evenly spun--there are fuzzies every so often, and sometimes it's thicker, sometimes thinner. I'm hoping because it's so fine, no one will notice the differences in thickness, and after it's blocked, I'll try to work the fuzzies to the back. (If you click on the image to see the larger version, on the lower left, you can see a rather large fuzzy.) Now that I'm ready to do the armhole shaping, you can really see the ribbing pattern; from one edge to the other, the number of stitches is:
10,11,12,11,12,11,12,11,12,11,10.

So far the pattern has been easy to follow, which I've heard is unusual for a vintage pattern; it doesn't seem to assume any special knitting expertise. Finding a suitable yarn was a challenge, though, since I couldn't find any information anywhere on the original yarn's yardage per ounce, and it took a lot of swatching to get the correct gauge. I didn't set out wanting to knit from a vintage pattern, but we had no choice--we couldn't find any contemporary men's patterns that were both in a fine gauge and for a 38" chest. It seems that all the men nowadays besides mine are large, like a loose fit in their sweaters, and want them knit from worsted or chunky yarn.