Fiber Musings

Knitting on the front page of today’s WSJ.

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• 228 in the News
• Accounts of what happened on February 28, 1947
• Article from Wikipaedia

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Introducing…the mini gansey that I knitted up over the course of the 2 day class with Beth Brown-Reinsel. Barely, that is. I booked at the end in order to say that I finished during the class. I had 15 minutes remaining when I casted off the neck. And it was not the cast off that I would have chosen, if this was a real sweater. I used the regular knit bind off instead of the sewn bind off. Then it was a leisurely finish to weave in all the ends. Oh-my-gawd! There were a lot of ends. At the end if each section, the instructions said “break yarn.” In that bitsy sweater, it was really obvious. I don’t think it would have been quite noticeable when working a larger sweater.

I swatched the moorit that I intended for a fisherman’s gansey on US #3 (3.25mm). It came to about 5.5 sts per inch. And it’s not showing off the textures as well as I’d like. I think both Ruth and Judith were correct. I need a minimum of 3 ply to make this work. And I had spun it semi-worsted, which didn’t help. I think worsted would be best. In any case, I’ll go down a needle size or 2 on my swatch to see how that works. If it shows it off “well enough” I might go ahead and make a gansey for myself, and get started on spinning the 3 ply worsted for a gansey for Martin. It won’t be an anniversary present, but a birthday one. Oh well. We are headed into the hot season in California. He wouldn’t be able wear it until at least October anyway.

I’ve been mulling over the stuff I learned in Michele Wipplinger’s 3 day Color Institute workshop and the 1 day Deb Menz workshop.
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Stuck home for 2 weeks with sinus/ear/throat/lung infection (antibiotic resistant streptoccus pneumonia grew out of the culture, yipes!). I was too tired and busy hacking to knit until 2 days ago. Call me to hear details of my (short) hospital stay.

I opened up Cat Bordhi’s book on knitting Moebius strips and tried my hand at Moebius cast on. Ann, you are so right. It is the easiest cast on ever. The simplest of all Moebius scarf is appearing by magic. Now I have to run out and buy some silk yarn for the Arrowhead lace.

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It was yet another lovely retreat put together by Suzanne and Cornie at Madrona Fiber Arts. I was much too busy in my classes to take pictures, but I did take a break and took this one from behind the Inn. Mt. Ranier in all her glory. It’s not often that you get a clear view of her from top to bottom.

What classes did I take? I dropped in on Judith MacKenzie’s Shetland (selection, prep, spin, and knit there of), followed it up with a 2 day class with Beth Brown-Reinsel on Ganseys, then a color workshop with Deb Menz. Whew! A packed 4 day weekend.

One thing I did figure out though, was that the yarn I spun up with the moorit merino may not be best for the fisherman knit that I wanted to make. Both Beth and Judith recommend a minimum of 3 plies to show the stitch patterns off to their best. I believe I made it into a 2 ply. Sigh.

What’s a girl to do when she’s got over 800 miles to travel by car and has a lace pattern that she’s just gotta swatch right now? Cast on, of course. And I found that the sun visor makes the niftiest pattern holder.

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