Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Knitting into the Frog Pond

I hate when this happens. Tuesday night, as I was measuring the progress on the dark grey cabled scarf and divvying up the last skein so the two tails would be the same length, I found a nasty error about 4 inches after the start of one tail. Grrr. It was too obvious to ignore. More Grrr. Frog, frog, frog. I finished the other tail, reduced the stitch count to keep the bottom seed stitch border from flaring, and bound off. Last night I finished reknitting the other tail. I may have mentioned I only had 4 balls of the yarn? I finished with less than 3 meters left. I am REALLY pleased with how this turned out.

After the frogging incident Tuesday night, I decided I had to finish putting my travel knitting back into order. I keep my current knitting projects in bags, recycled Elann plastic bags for the really small projects, zipper bags for larger ones, and the largest ones each in its own tote bag. The smaller projects live inside their own bags in other totes. DH calls me the "Imelda Marcos of Tote Bags" !

During the Phoenix trip, I knitted about 2 feet of the WEBS Falling Leaves scarf from their Stockbridge yarn (scroll down the website page to see the pattern). It's an easy, easy pattern, with 4 pattern rows and the 4 return rows all purled. Guess what? I found an error
about 4 inches from the start; a leaf that I left out a row on. Not totally obvious, but.... I'm trying to rationalize leaving it as is. But it, too, will probably wind up in the frog pond. Still more Grrrrrrr. No further progress on that yet, but here's a picture of the about-to-be frogged item.

Since the camera batteries are now recharged, I can show off my goodies from The Fiber Factory in Mesa, AZ.
Crystal Palace bamboo circulars, a couple of luscious Susanne's rosewood circs, and 9 skeins of yarny goodness. This is 10 ply (worsted) Merino et Soie from New Zealand's Naturally company. 70% merino and 30% silk, and - ta da! - machine washable. You don't see the name on the labels; the one annoying thing about the LYS is that they have big price labels and they seem to put them right over the name of the yarn. I had in mind to use this to make a shawl-sized version of the Falling Leaves scarf. Or not; there are lots of patterns to choose from, lol! This is 900yds, which is just enough for Wool Peddler's, too. In case anyone is interested, these pictures are taken on the little cast-aluminum table we have on our back patio; here it's sitting in the shade of the lime tree.

Just to finish off, here's a picture of DH and me with Auntie and Uncle, kindly snapped by the server in Auntie's dining room. I hope I look as good as Auntie when I'm 80-mumble.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Barbara: your scarf is beautiful! the purple yarn is gorgeous. Can not find the falling leaves scarf from the website. SK

Anonymous said...

I love your cabled scarf - have been looking for a pattern like this, are you sharing details :)? The falling leaves is lovely too - but I just took my finger off the "order" button at Webs! Something for my wish list I guess.

Cindy G said...

grr indeed! But the cable scarf is wonderful. Great design job. And yes, I know you "just used BW", but you are the one who put the combination together so nicely and did all the darn math - well done.

Bri McS said...

What a great post. You've got a FO that I envy, yarn booty from your trip, and a nice family photo. The last week or so has been good to you- enjoy it.

LisaW. said...

Hi CBM...so sorry about the frog infestation! I hate it when that happens....especially when you are so far into a project. Love the cable scarf! I'd definately take a copy of the pattern if you're winging them out. Grrreeat purchases! Looks like a nice trip overall for the CBM.

Anonymous said...

Wish I looked as good as Auntie now!

Is the problem in the scard soemthing you could fix by doing duplicate stitch over it? sometimes that works...

And I think you have my email, if you would be so very very kind to send me your scarf pattern...