Can we say FO?

I told myself I wouldn't get all housecrafty weird with my knitting. No knitted toilet roll dolls or kleenex box covers. No knitted afghans in Red Heart. The things I would make would either be classy or arty.

That was before Judy showed off her steering wheel cover.

Judy's one of the most down to earth people I know. She is as far from that kitschy 60's craft crap as you can imagine. I never thought she'd do a steering wheel cover. But she did. And it's pretty classy in my opinion. So I asked her where she got the pattern. "Debbie Stoller's Son of Stitch n Bitch," she says. So off I go.

It turned out the pattern was very simple, a sort of mindless knit. The yarn, Berroco Suede, was nice to work with and has a very pleasant feel to the hand. My biggest concern was how much would it stretch and would it stretch over time. We'll have to see. As you can see I have it now on the wheel and is marvelous under the hands for driving. It will make driving with knitted gloves a lot safer because now I have a surface to grip.

One down

Witt's socks are coming along nicely. I finished sock number one Sunday morning and started number two after finishing the steering wheel cover. Witt wanted the colors to start in different places, so not only am I starting with a different color but I'm also going a different direction.

These will definitely be fraternal socks. My camera didn't know what to do with the colors so I took photos indoors and out on a slightly overcast day. The indoor one is a bit more blue than actual color. The outdoor is a bit more washed out. Whatever they come out as though, he will be a blue heeler.

Happy Valentine's Day!

May you and yours have a special day today.

Sock progress

Witt's sock is coming along steadily. The heel is turned and I'm now working on the gusset. The color changes make it fun to knit. As you can see I rewound the skein into a ball so I could see what color was coming up next. The pattern is my basic sock recipe of patch toe with heel flap instructions from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks.

The socks went with me to class this morning. For three days I'm taking a course through work on MS Access, mostly as a refresher from the class I took back in 2001. It's part of some changes that are happening for me at the office. I have to rise earlier to make the commute, but I'm getting to do something different. The teacher recognized me even though it had been a couple of years since I last took a class from her. She recognized the knitting.

Off to do a chores before settling down to watch the Westminster dog show. Root for the corgis!

Yarn(ia) crawl

A group of the PDX Knitbloggers gathered yesterday at Yarnia, the latest shop opening in Portland. Unlike other shops, Yarnia's concept is for a person to come in and make a yarn from the selections of yarns they have available. The resulting yarn would be in a sense unique.

The proprietress, Lindsay Ross, took the concept from a yarn shop in Montreal, La Bobineuse de Laine, and set up shop. The yarn is sold by the pound. At first you think, why should I get a yarn that I have to have made when there are already so many out there? Well, suppose you want to make a tank top out of cotton and silk. There are several yarns out there that are cotton and silk blends, but they're on the spendy side. At Yarnia, you can make a cotton/silk blend yarn in the colors you want for less. You're not paying for a name or a cachet. It's a more affordable means of obtaining yarn for projects.

I had gone in with no intention of coming out with yarn. Stop laughing. I did. I was going to check it out to see what I could find there and what yarns Lindsay had. For starting up, she had a fair selection to choose from of different fibers and types. I ended up hovering over the silk/rayon blends and boucles, taking a multicolored silk/rayon blend and matching it up with different yarns. I was sucked into the magic and had two cones picked out for winding together: the multi in warm tones and a rust fine boucle. In several minutes, Lindsay had the yarn wound for me. I had enough to make a wrap for taking with me to Miami in July. When I got it home, I swatched it up and am very pleased with the effects.

The Knitbloggers afterwards went out to lunch at the Berlin Inn. This is a small German restaurant with excellent food. There were 8 of us and I was afraid we would overwhelm the place, but they had a niche for our party. There were some concerns, especially for Kerin who can't have dairy of any kind, but all of us found items that were very satisfying. Kerin was pleased to find a chicken schnitzel club with no dairy. Not only did it have no dairy, but it had bacon.

Not piddlin' strips but slabs of bacon.

I think this says it all.

Your comments

I'm a bad blogger. Two people have said I've made their day and given me an award for it, and I haven't acknowledged them. So I want to thank Sharon and Shelly for their generosity. I also want to thank Joan S. for your kind comments yesterday. It's good to know that even though I get few comments I do have readers. Thank you everyone who has commented.

Emerald, thanks for trying out the patch toe. I'm glad you like it. Yes, you're welcome to link to it. May you and yours stay out of harm's way as you do your duty.

For those of you curious about how I'm doing with the tablet mouse, it's working out very well. I haven't yet used it for drawing purposes, but for working with Knit Visualizer it was so much less taxing than using a standard mouse. Working out the chart for the Norwegian sweater for the Ethnic Knitting KAL was a piece of cake.

My good friend Witt asked me if I would knit a pair of socks for him as his hands won't knit tiny gauge. He has a new pair of clogs and wants socks to show off. For him I'd knit him a Kaffe Fassett sweater, he's such a sweetheart. So I'm knitting a pair in Noro Sock yarn colorway 150. It's a little stiff but it's softening as I'm working it. The color changings make up for the stiffness of the yarn. OOOhhh! Blue!

For those of you wondering if I've been affected by the snow, I haven't but some of my siblings have. Spokane had their 4th snowiest January on record (up to 28 inches on the ground) and Klamath Falls needs shovels. The little kid in me wants snow but the adult in me is thankful that we don't have ice. And hearing from other places in the country we're pretty much in the banana belt this winter. So no complaints here.