Blogging into the Silence

Okay, I haven’t posted in a while.  I’ll save the handwringing and spare the self-flagellation and get on to the content.  The biggest item of which is…

I finished The-Shawl-That-Must-Not-Be-Named.  And it even gets a title change, as I can name it now!  I didn’t want to before I finished it, as I wanted the inspiration for the shawl to be a surprise to someone but now I give you…

Yes, she’s named and designed after Blodwen Rowlands from Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising Sequence.  Spider pattern in the centre for the way she traps people in her web with magic, like a spider in her web; horseshoe lace for the border, as she is the White Rider of the Dark; Lily-of-the-Valley for the edging, as her name means “white flowers”, and these flowers, like her, are beautiful but deadly.

A shot actually wearing the shawl:

And a diagram of the construction I used:

You can click on the pictures to embiggen them.  I should also mention that I am SO GLAD I got blocking wires for this project.  This shawl is a square the width of a double bed.  I cannot imagine pinning it all.

Last item, I found some interesting descriptions of knitting from the excerpts from Victorian instruction manuals at RobinStokes.com.  Consider these from the Ladies Complete Guide to Crochet and Fancy Knitting:

The work being held in the left hand, the needle must be held closely pressed between the palm and the third and fourth fingers, …the other needle is held between the thumb and first finger of the right hand, and rests on the hand.

I’m trying to picture this.  I think it means holding the right needle pen-style, and the left needle overhand?

 Knitting needles should have no sharp points. The needles should gradually taper to a rounded, smooth end, half an inch, at least, being thus gradually diminished.

This is rather interesting because I generally see complaints about knitting needles not being pointy enough, particularly when knitters are doing fine lacework. Hence why the addi lace turbos are pointier than the regular addis. Considering the amount of fine work being done in the Victorian era, I can’t imagine doing it with blunter needles, though perhaps this source means they shouldn’t be pointy in the will-actually-puncture-the-skin sense?

Anyway, there’s a lot of interesting material there, both on that page and others on the site and go take a look at the book reproductions for sale.  The 1817 knitting instrcution book makes me happy in my pants.

Boop. Beep. Boop. Beep.

So as the eagle-eyed or long-time reader might have noticed, I’m a wee bit of a fan of the Fox show 24 (no, really? I would never have guessed!). While I’m used to waiting a long time between seasons (the show runs uninterrupted between January and May, making for a 7-month hiatus), due to the Writers’ Guild strike, that wait is going to be even longer. This past Sunday should have been the 2-hour premiere of season 7, and instead, sadly, those first eight episodes are sitting in some vault somewhere (you have no idea how much this thought tortures me).

Which is where the incredibly sad, fangirly knitting comes in.

In lieu of a new season, I’ve decided that for the next five months, for every episode of season 7 that would have aired, I’ll watch an episode from seasons 1-6, and review it (reviews are posted on my LiveJournal). And if that wasn’t sad enough, I’ve set myself a knitting challenge to accompany it. My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to knit a pair of socks from the Solo sock yarn I got from A Swell Yarn Shop, in the “Bauer Blue” colourway. More specifically, to knit the pair in the 24 hours of episodes that I’ll be watching over the next few months. The only time I am allowed to work on these socks is when I’m watching an episode as part of the challenge.

Naturally I accepted the mission wholeheartedly.

Which would explain why, on Sunday night, I gathered my supplies and plunked myself downstairs in front of the TV. Armed with the season premieres from season 1 and 6, the Bauer Blue yarn, a brand-new set of 2.75mm needles from Knitpicks, the “Sensational Knitted Socks” books by Charlene Schurch and some popcorn, I settled in to knit. By the end of the two episodes I watched on Sunday I had the toes of each sock finished, and after the two episodes on Monday, I’m an inch and a half to two inches into the foot.

In other yarny news, I’ve been a bad, bad little stashbuster and have added yarn to the stash. Just before Christmas, Miz Violet of Lime and Violet was doing a stash purge of her own, and so naturally, some of her stash just had to become some of my stash. I got two balls of Interlacements Tiny Toes in a navy blue semi-solid, a skein of Cider Moon Glacier in “Wildwood” and the one that I was stalking the site for, some Socks that Rock Mediumweight in the “Lunasea” colourway. I didn’t just buy this stuff because it was Miz V’s, it’s all stuff I really wanted, but I have to admit part of me opened the package thinking “OMG! This is, like…rockstar yarn!”

And then of course there was the trip into Toronto for New Year’s. I went to visit a friend of mine who lives in Pickering, and naturally prior to taking the GO Train from downtown Toronto to Pickering, I had to do a bit of a yarn crawl. I managed to escape that day having only bought two skeins of Koigu at the Knit Cafe in a great orange-red-burgundy-purple colourway, which I intend to use for a pair of the Fawkes socks. This is a remarkable accomplishment if I do say so myself, as Lettuce Knit had Socks that Rock in stock, including some colourways that are not on the website.

But then on New Year’s Day, prior to getting on the bus to go home, I went to the pajama party hosted at one of the newest yarn stores in Toronto, The Purple Purl. I had a great time, talked with a lot of very nice knitters, saw some adorable babies and…of course had to buy another skein of yarn. Indigo Moon sock yarn, this time, in a deep purple shaded solid.

But really, two pairs of socks’ worth of yarn! That’s not that much for a trip to Toronto! Really!

Anyway, it looks like I’ll have more time to work on said projects, as thanks to the Niagara Knitters group on Ravelry, I may actually have a semi-regular stitch & bitch to go to! A couple of us got together before Christmas, and there’s another meetup planned for tomorrow. We haven’t decided on a regular night (and might not, so we can change nights when people have other plans or for those who would usually be busy on whatever regular night we might pick) but there’s at least some indication that we’ll probably get together fairly often–maybe not every week, but every couple weeks would be nice. In case anyone from the area stumbles over this, we’ll be meeting at the Fine Grind Cafe in downtown St. Catharines tomorrow around 7pm. It looks like the Fine Grind will be the usual meeting place as neither Starbucks in the city is an option, really (too busy or not laid out in a manner that would make it easy to gather), and while there’s another cafe downtown, it’s fairly dark inside. Plus, the Fine Grind has amazing hot chocolate, though summer will be tricky as it’s not air conditioned.

Finally, a local knitting community!

My freeze-frame-fu is strong

You know you’re a sad, sad little knitter when you’re watching a movie and you have to catch yourself from spending too much time examining the knitwear.

So of course that’s exactly what I’m doing. Particularly considering I’m watching A&E’s Shackleton, and as a great deal of it takes place on board ship there are lots of cozy-looking sweaters. Not terribly intricate or detailed sweaters–Shackleton’s brown sweater with basketweave pattern in the top third of the torso is about the most elaborate–but it’s rather amusing to spot some gansey construction techniques thanks to the DVD resolution and my proximity to my laptop screen. I’d rather like to make a copy of the Shackleton gansey for my own use. Particularly as I made one a few years ago for a teddy bear I have that’s constructed in an old-fashioned style.

Okay, so now that my geek moment for this post is done, on to the knitting! I promised pictures of the Swallowtail Shawl when it was blocked, and here they are.

I really liked this pattern, and as I said in my last post, once I just kind of decided that I would just take one row at a time, it breezed along like no one’s business. I’ve worn it a couple times to work, and I’ve had a couple co-workers compliment it. One, after after apologizing if this didn’t sound like a compliment, said it looked like a spider’s web, it was so delicate and light. I told her that of course it’s not an insult, and naturally mentioned that there are lace patterns called “spider lace” and a weight of wool even finer than what I’d used for this shawl called cobweb weight.

Now that that’s done, I’m plugging away at the Shetland-which-must-not-be-named, albeit slowly. A few rows here, a few rows there, and eventually it’ll get done.

I’ve also started a new pair of socks, in some lovely semi-solid Koigu KPM. It’s a nice dark olive green, or it looks brown in some kinds of light. This suits me perfectly as I have a pair of corduroy pants that do the exact same thing, in the same colours. At the moment I’m working on a cabled pattern, as I wanted something sort of traditional, rustic and fisherman-y to go with the colour. No progress pics on that yet, as I’ve only just started the cables; I’ll take some when the pattern is more established.

Oh, and since I posted last, I got a ballwinder. It’s amazing, and I wound up the Koigu in a jiffy thanks to its help. I actually wound it up a couple of times, as I always found some slight imperfection in the ball to excuse winding it up again. You know what they say about simple pleasures.

Oh, and back to the subject of Shackleton, I’d highly recommend it. It’s a fascinating story, all the more so because it’s true, and it’s one of those historical movies where even though you know how it’s going to end, it’s riveting nonetheless. Kenneth Branagh is excellent in it (okay, he’s also totally hot) and the sweaters and snowy scenery are making me itch to knit something while watching it. Not to mention that I love the music from it. A&E really needs to put out a compilation CD of themes from the movies they’ve done, as I could listen to the music from a lot of their movies over and over again.

It’s a few years old (five years–or maybe almost six. It was late in my second year of university, that it aired, I know that) but you can probably still find the DVD to rent, and I got my copy from a secondhand video store. It shouldn’t be too hard to get through Amazon for a good price, either.

Success!

The Swallowtail Shawl is finished! *punches air and makes the international symbol for “ROCK ON!!” with her hands*

Finished it last night after a couple hours of doing the last couple chart rows and the finishing rows. Technically I know that does not necessarily count as “finished” as the shawl still needs to be blocked, but the actual making of the shawl is complete. I’d have blocked it tonight and left it to dry overnight, but my brother and his fiancee are coming to visit and so it’s probably best if the guest bed doesn’t have a whole bunch of pins in it (especially if the pooches are coming).

Obviously I could un-pin it tomorrow morning and re-make the bed, but I’d have to do that before I went to work and that would require getting up earlier than I’d prefer, ie: before 9am. I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, which is why I love the fact that I’ve been moved to running the smallest branch on Saturdays. Start at 11am, end at 4pm and I’m the only adult staff person there. Sounds pretty good to me.

Photos will wait for the blocking process, as I can just as easily take a picture of a lumpy mound of laceweight before I pin it as I could now. Now, back to that epic Shetland shawl project. It has been named, but I dare not say it here, lest someone in particular see it. Not that it’s a gift (ahahaha, give away my first shetland shawl, yeah right. I’m not that nice a person) but they’re bound to like the inspiration behind it and so I’d rather they not find that out until it’s finished, and there’s a small chance they might decide to take a look at my knitting blog.

Until then, victory dance!

Knit, purl, cough, wheeze.

Well the weather outside is frightful, and I’m still suffering the tail end of a cold that won’t go away (8 days and counting!) so naturally, what was a girl to do on her day off, but curl up in front of the TV and knit? Actually, I’d been hoping to make a trek to Grimsby to go to a new yarn store that opened recently, Stitch, but with the weather and my cold I elected to stay in bed. Looks like that trip’s going to have to wait a couple weeks as my work schedule and the fact that I need to coordinate with the Greyhound schedules means no yarn store visiting for a while.

First, I bring you photos of the finished Chalet Socks that I mentioned finishing in my last post:

Possibly not the best photos of a sock ever to be seen in blogdom, but I’ve yet to perfect the art of taking a photo of a sock that happens to be on my own foot. Unfortunately I’m the only person in the house with a ladies’ size nine-and-a-half foot, or anywhere near it, or I’d get someone else to model it for me while I took the picture.

For the last couple weeks I’ve been steaming ahead on the Swallowtail Shawl out of Ruby-coloured Jaggerspun Zephyr laceweight that I started last year and neglected for far too long. I’m not entirely sure why I left it so long, either. I stopped knitting on it after the first row of nupps in the first Lily-of-the-Valley chart as I remember those purl 5 togethers were a pain, but somehow when I picked it up, it was no biggie. Maybe the day I tried to do it just wasn’t the right day, and I couldn’t spot the pattern and put it in the…well, it’s hard to explain, but the kind of condensed form lace patterns seem to take on when I manage to memorise them, at least for that row. Though I seem to remember that it was the “p5tog” that were the major problem as it seemed impossible to get the needle in under all five loops. I don’t think I’ve gained any experience as a knitter in the meantime that’s made it easier.

Whatever the reason, when I started up a couple weeks ago the nupps weren’t a problem at all, and I’ve breezed along up to where I am now, a simple two pattern rows from the end of the edging chart. Then it’s just the finishing rows and blocking, and whee, I have a lovely new shawl!

It’s certainly good timing, too, as hopefully this way I’ll get to wear it to the library’s Christmas party, and also because I’ve got an idea for another shawl. The source of the inspiration?

Edward Scissorhands. No, really. I’ve got this really cool idea for it burning up my brain and I know exactly the type of yarn I’d like to do it in. Of course that would require ordering more yarn and I think I’ve got quite enough of that already. As proof, I submit these photos of my storage system as exhibit A:

Yes, that is what it looks like: a shoe organizer from IKEA. A couple hooks in the back of my door and it’s a yarn organizer and reminder system–as in, reminding me when I see cool new yarn that I shouldn’t buy any. Or reminding me of projects that I’ve got yarn for that I should do before I do anything else. Though one big plus to it is that when I open the door to my room I get this nice waft of air carrying the smell of wool to my nose. Well, when my nose isn’t plugged up, of course.

Of course that photo was taken before there were a couple additions to the organizer…

…A Swell Yarn Shop Solo Sock yarn in Bauer Blue and Bauer Red. No, that purchase has nothing to do with the name being similar to that of a certain character on a certain tv show. Nothing at all… *shifty*

Okay, it does. But I mean come on, like I needed the extra incentive as OMG, gorgeous yarn!

I’m also forging along on the River Rapids socks I’m doing in Fleece Artist Sea Wool, in the Marine colourway, and oh, this stuff is heavenly. So soft, with a lovely sheen and nice bright colours. I can’t wait to finish; I’ve got both socks about to the point where I should start the ribbing, as I’m doing them toe-up.

But first, time for some cough medicine, I think. Happy Thanksgiving to any Americans that stumble across this and hope the turkey’s delicious!

End of Summer Vacation

Whee, I’m not dead. The summer and fall have been fery busy so far, what with Summer programs and then quite a bit of staff turnover in the fall. Our schedules are pretty nuts at the moment, so when I’ve been getting home I’ve pretty much been in the stare-at-the-TV/computer-and-drool. However, I was talking to someone I met in the knitting section at Chapters earlier today and gave her my blog address, and as she might be visiting soon I figured it was probably about time to get off my butt and update.

Even with all the bustle of work, I have been knitting, though! I’ve been working on a couple of lacy things, but as it’s the end of Socktoberfest, I’ll just list the finished pairs of socks, namely:

1) Lorna’s Laces Sailor’s Rib socks that I mentioned debating about in my last post. Nothing really special about these, they’re just warm and comfy.

2) “24″ socks. I made these out of White Oak Studio’s TV Yarn, in the “24″ colourway, which, not surprisingly I had to have as soon as I saw it. I love this yarn–so soft and smooshy and gorgeous colours. I have another pair’s worth in the “Casablanca” colourway that I have to get to at some point, once I’ve knit up some of the older yarn in my stash.

3) A pair of Pomatomuses (Pomatomi?) using Blue Moon Fiber Arts‘ Socks that Rock in the “Love in Idleness” colourway. These were kind of serendipitous as when I received the yarn I was kind fo disappointed in the colours. I had seen it on a number of monitors, but it the colours had always looked brighter than they did in the skein. However when I decided to knit Pomatomus in this yarn, I quickly realized that it was perfect for the pattern. The yarn is colourful enough to make gorgeous spirals around the socks, but subtle enough to really show off the pattern. Just perfect.

4) A pair of Chalet Socks from Folk Socks, in Hand Jive Knits‘ Nature’s Palette “Zinfandel”. I just finished these this afternoon as I was sitting at the desk before work. I quickly switched them with the socks I was wearing and my feet are all lovely snd toasty warm in my Mary Janes at the moment. They’re lovely socks, and I think they’ve given me a mania for twisted stitches. I love the crispness of the little cables.

On a sadder note, the yarn store in Niagara Falls is closing, which makes one less local yarn store I can get to, if not often. I went out there on Wednesday and got a few things, scoring a couple hanks of laceweight and a discounted yarn swift. I’ve heard there’s one that’s opened in Grimsby–Stitch–but I’ll have to see what it costs/how long it takes to get there on the Greyhound, and I doubt I’ll be able to get there often. But if I can get there once or twice and see what they have I can always mail order, though that’s so not the same as actually going to a yarn store. I already miss being able to stop in at a yarn store here in town and browse with the chance of actually buying anything.

Anyway, enough of me blathering for now; hopefully I’ll get some photos up soon. Oh, and one of the reasons I’ve been scarce is because I’ve fallen in love with Ravelry. I’m knitwit1912 on there, so go ahead and say hello! For anyone in the Niagara area, there’s also a new group on there: Niagara Knitters. I’m already hoping that there’ll be enough locals to organize a knitting group here in town, as my work schedule might not let me go to the one at The Fine Grind much longer. *crosses fingers*

A Tale of Two Socks (and Blogs)

Well here we are, at the new blog!  Hopefully everyone remembered to update their bookmarks; I have all my previous posts transferred over here, so if you’re just arriving, you can browse through the archives here.

I decided to move the blog as Blogger was basically just annoying the heck out of me on a few different fronts (randomly deciding to change me to “no notfication of comments”, a picture-uploading feature that only seemed to work half the time, as well as a few other things) so I decided to try WordPress and so far I have to say that I like it–it seems a bit more user-friendly to CSS n00bs like me.

Anyway, here I am, and on to the knitting content.

The last couple weeks have been pretty hectic so while I’ve been doing a fair bit of knitting there hasn’t been too much to report until recently.  Starting off with the most recent thing, I’ve started a couple different pairs of socks, but while I’m not far into the foot on both, I’m looking at each and wondering if they might not both get ripped out and started over.  Here, I’ll illustrate what I mean:

As you can see, here we have two socks; one, in Sunshine Yarns’ “Stormwatch”, one in Lorna’s Laces “Icehouse”.  The Sunshine yarn is being knit in the Sailor’s Rib stitch, the LL in the Conwy sock pattern from Nancy Bush’s Knitting on the Road.  Of course the trained eye can see the problem with the LL sock: too muhc colour for the pattern.  The problem with the SY, however is that I’m wondering if there’s not enough pattern. 

The SY has enough subtlety in its colour that I think I could knit it in a more elaborate stitch pattern, though I do want to do themed socks with it.  The colours make me think of storms over Lake Ontario (which I live a few blocks from), as well as the Welland Canal, which is also not very far away. 

They’re also two things that I’ve grown up with; until we got the windows replaced my bedroom window would rattle every time a ship went through the canal, and people visiting our house would often jump at the loud toot of a boat horn.  My elementary school was across the street from the canal, so we could watch the boats go through while we were on the playground (as well as providing ample excuse for young boys to titter and go “Hey, who farted?” every time a boat sounded its horn), and when we were really little my parents used to walk us over to the canal to watch boats go through.  We would wave to the crew members on board, and a few times they tossed us things back.  I’m pretty sure I still have a coin from Thailand that one crew member threw to us.   

So needless to say, while I might want to do the Stormwatch in a more complicated pattern I still want to connect it to the lakes and seafaring.  Now that I think of it, I could do a cabled pattern, or even incorporate small cables with some of the traditional Gansey patterns.  I think I’ve made up my mind just in writing this.

As for the Lorna’s Laces, I think if I rip it out, I’ll just do a more interesting rib pattern.  Originally I’d intended the LL would be the more complicated “work on it at home” pair and the SY the simpler, “work on it on the bus” pair, but it looks like those may be switching places.  Of course I don’t really want to have to rip out both socks, but then at least I hadn’t started their mates yet.

Of course the nice bonus to working on the LL is that I recently got my first order from Knitpicks, which consisted of a pair of 3.5mm tips and a couple sizes of the Options cables (for the much-neglected Swallowtail Shawl, as well as another shawl I want to start, but that’s for another blog entry), as well as a 2.5mm circular needle.  So far I love the Knitpicks circulars.  The pointy tips, the excellent join, the coating that’s not too slick and not to sticky either…  Just love them.  When they finally make the 2.25mm circs in the longer lengths available next month, I’m going to get those as well as a 2mm, for socks involving lacy things or no-cable-needle cables.  I might even like them better than my Addi Turbos.

Next time:  lacy things, and I actually finished something!

Grumblings

Grrr.

Where in the hell is that 2.5mm circular I bought? This is the only thing I don’t like about circs–trying to store them. I think I’m going to have to consider getting a binder with plastic sleeves or something. Of course tidying my room and organizing my knitting stuff would work too, but that would actually be work.

Of course the reason I’m looking for it is because I finished the Trekking socks and I want to move on to a new pair, but it makes it rather difficult to do that when I can’t find the *&^% needle I want to use. Of course this should probably be a sign to finish the ones I already have on the needles, particularly as I’m planning to join a knitalong which does not involve socks–or doesn’t this month at least. More on that when I actually join.

I’ll have pictures of the Trekking socks in a couple days, as I’ve been working all day and I want to try taking pictures of things under natural light, so it’ll have to wait for tomorrow.

"Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner with her knitting…"

Well here I was thinking that the photos I took of the socks I’m making in Lisa Souza yarn were going to be sadly outdated by the time I got them up on the blog. Then, with both heels turned, I actually tried them on.

You can see where this is going, right?

I had tried them on before doing the heels, but looks like I was mistaken in my idea of where they should start–the heel is shorter than ones I’ve made in other yarns, and so those heels and the small amount of what I’d knit on the cuff had to come out.

That was a week ago, though, and I’ve managed to turn both heels and get a few inches up the leg–quite a few inches on one of them, thanks to a marathon viewing of the 4-hour Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Jane Eyre (one of my favourite books; more on the miniseries in a minute). And I have pictures this time, pictures that are only a day or two old!

Both socks, nearly the same length
Detail of the calf increases–a bit wonky, as I was making it up as I went along, but looks better when it’s on.

In other good news, we have a local stitch n’ bitch again, desipite the closure of the store that was hosting it. The person from that store that started it has moved it to a cafe downtown and even better, it’ll be on the first Thursday evening of the month, which works well with my work schedule.

As for Jane Eyre, I thought it was done pretty well. There were a few moments early on where Rochester seemed to be portrayed more emo than I got a feeling for in the book (I was referring to him as “emo boy” for a while), but I did like that both he and Jane also had their more lighthearted moments instead of being permanently dour. There were a few things that were changed from the book of course, even those that weren’t just for length reasons, though most of them I didn’t mind. Really, it’s to be expected in any adaptation for television or the movies. And this is better than a lot of the more recent adaptations of Jane Eyre simply by its being twice as long as the other films–four hours instead of two. The others (the A&E version with Ciaran Hinds and the big-screen William Hurt version) sufferend by having to cram too much into too little time, and I’ve been hoping that someone would do a longer version for years now. Definitely good to knit to!

The Times They Are A-Changin’

I’m not dead yet! Work and other things (*coughRPGcough*) have made the last couple months busy ones, and somehow whenever I sat down to update my brain shied away from forming sentences. So how about I spare you a long synopsis of everything that’s been going on and just cut to the news of the day?

Well it was nice while it lasted. Looks like the more upscale yarn store in town is closing, as the owners are moving. No more cashmere, no more Malabrigo, no more higher-end alpaca and 100% wool. The ladies at the other yarn store in town are nice, but a lot of the stock…well it’s kind of old and not as nice as the stuff at the other store. Definitely no cashmere, no handpaints, no Elsebeth Lavold, and very little sock yarn (thought admittedly the upscale store didn’t really have that much handpainted stuff either). Looks like it’s back to waiting until I go into Toronto for the good stuff; either that or ordering off the internet. Though some things will hopefully only mean more trips into Niagara Falls to the yarn store there, as they have some things that the yarn stores here don’t carry (laceweight!).

It also means no more second-Saturday knitting group, which has me thinking about starting one up. The main problems are timing and location, but those are pretty big problems. There are only a couple cafes downtown that are a distinct possibility. I know the library’s policy on room usage and that’s out–it would be costly and there’s a line in the policy about groups not using it too many times. Community centres tend to be out of the downtown core and I’d like it to be close to the bus station.

The other problem is my work schedule, as I work every other Saturday afternoon, which is problematic. Also probiematic is that while I have a regular evening shift on Fridays, technically I can work any night between Tues-Thurs as well. I’m not sure I like the idea of making it only once a month, as if you miss that one day you’re kind of screwed (as I know from personal experience). There is a gathering at the other yarn store in town but I only got to go once before I had a string of months where I couldn’t make it that one night a month, and I haven’t really been able to get back to it. Having it every Saturday afternoon, or on a night when I have to work that week would be all right once it’s an established group and there are one or tow other people I know will show up (and that I could give signs to, or whatever), but it’s problematic when you’re starting. I’d also have to check with the owners of the venue and see how they would feel about people being there every week, though if we could find a time when they’re not usually that busy they might welcome an every-week gathering! Ah well. I’ll check those cafes, speak with the owners and see about it.

It’s something I think I’d especially like to do as there doesn’t seem to be much of a knitting community here, and the yarn stores here never really seem that busy, though maybe it’s just the times that I drop in. The knitting groups at the yarn store also seem to be heavy on the friends/co-workers of the owner, too, which can be a little awkward and off-putting, particularly when it’s a small group.

Now the yarn store in the Falls, I dropped into a couple weeks ago and wasn’t there for more than fifteen minutes before the owner was asking if I’d like to teach a class–and I’ve only been there twice in the last year! There were a group of people sitting in the back and they invited me to sit down and knit, and I readily agreed as I’d had to go into the Falls for a dermatologist’s appointment (whose office, handily, was about a 20 minute walk from the yarn store). It took a load off my feet, pulled out the sock I was working on on one circular needle, and the owner and I got discussing it, and bam, she asked me to consider doing a workshop. She’s always looking for teachers, and this was before I mentioned that I teach knitting at the library. I’d love to do it though the timing is going to be a little tricky with my work schedule, and the fact that I don’t have a car so I have to take buses into the Falls. During the university fall/winter semesters Niagara Falls transit runs a bus to the university that can let me off right near the store, but in the summer I’d have to use the Greyhound, then take a bus from the terminal. We’ll see if we can work it out, though.

And finally, some picspam of recently finished socks: I call them my “Table Rock” socks. The yarn is “Cliffhanger” by Sunshine Yarns, and I wanted to do a themed sock with it, so I thought about cliffs nearby. Of course the biggest one in this area is the Niagara Escarpment and, naturally, Niagara Falls, so I decided on a stitch pattern of my own “unvention”, to make a similar effect to that in Knitty’s Wavy Scarf. With the colour of the yarn the pattern doesn’t show up as much as it could, but I know it’s there. Using cabled waves instead of knit and purls would show up better, but I decided I didn’t want to do cable twists 12 times every 4 rows. They’re named after the rock formation on the Canadian side, right at the edge of the Falls.

The vertical wave pattern, while in progress, click for larger pic

The finished sock!

Next time: photos of the socks I’m making with Lisa Souza yarn. I loooooove it.