Falling on the ice

Hi Mare,
Well it has been a while since I posted. I don't suppose comments on your posts count. I have been having exciting times 'cause I fell on the ice and sprained my left wrist. Such a bummer. I had Jim go get me a brace to hold it still as any movement was very painful. And I iced it. I was good.

It was much better by the end of the second day when I discovered I was allergic to the neoprene the brace was made out of and had a very itchy rash where the brace had been. So then I went braceless but really was so much better that didn't matter. I still iced it occasionally and practiced stretches gently.

It will be a week tomorrow morning and I am very much better. I try to keep clothes off the rashy place as I can stand most anything better than itchiness. I have a lovely greenish blue bruise on the inside of my wrist and occasional bruises other places on my body and a sore shoulder. However I started knitting again last night and it was fine as long as I went slowely. I still can't put much pressure on it or carry anything heavier than a dozen eggs without pain but it gets better every day.

When I fell I broke my glasses. I had just had a eye test last week and decided that new glasses were a luxury I didn't need since my prescription hadn't changed. (Even though I saw some frames I really liked.) So I will be getting them later this week. See, every cloud has a silver lining. Or when someone slams the door they open a window. Or something like that. Meanwhile I am wearing my two year old glasses. Luckily I brought them down to Minneapolis this year.

So you are in Seattle? Taking pictures of anything besides stairways? I really sort of liked your stairways. You found so many interesting ones. I think you should have a stairway picture blog.

I am going to bed early tonight so this is all I am posting. I could take a picture of our stairway here if you want one. I will work on getting a picture of my new glasses.

Love,
Nancy

More knitting miscellany

Howdy! I'm getting ready to do another Seattle travelogue this coming weekend. This time I promise to visit at least one yarn shop. In fact, the ol' bear has even scouted one out for me that's near his apartment. That's my huggy bear!
I'll leave you with some pictoral thoughts (worth a thousand words!) of things that have been inspiring knitting and that have been keeping me busy (and away from writing the dreaded "personal statement" required to apply for grad school) lately:






















This one I will have to give credit to the back cover of Knitting in the Nordic Tradition.
























Happy Knitting! L, md PS Yarn Harlot's going to be at The Yarnery on April 4.

Snowflake hat details

Howdy on Saturday night after a prime rib dinner at the Moose Hall - a fundraiser for a pre-school that somebody gave us tickets for (us being me and a fellow library worker.) Let's see if I can answer your questions about the snowflake hat.

Yes, it has a hem. The pattern calls for you to cast on using a waste yarn - a smooth cotton is what the pattern says - I used hemp at Aimee's suggestion. You then knit on with the main color and do the rows for the inside, do a purl row for a fold, then start knitting the snowflake pattern. When the pattern rows equal the rows before the purl row, you knit two together - the one on your needle knit with a matching bump you can see sticking out of the contrasting cast on. It's easy as pie and you've probably done it before.
The only sticking point on this pattern was the rows that had the lice - three color rows. But the pattern was such that it was easily mastered by keeping the white and dark purple in my left hand, and throwing the blue with my right. The purple and white could be tacked together under the blue, thus keeping the floats a manageable length.

Then I added a kicky tassel that I saw on Aimee's version of the hat, with the strands unplied at the end, as Kendra suggested. Nothing is really created just by one person, is it?

It was fun to make and turned out so well that I wore it today at work while I checked people's
books out for them. I pretended my head was cold. What a show-off! Ok, it's time for
you to show us some knitting!

I LOVE that hat!

I do, I really do. I would wear it to bed too. Golly gee whillikers but it is beautiful. Is that white edge at the bottom part of an inner lining or just a hem like area? You better keep it away from the kitty. He will love that Alpaca too. He might drool on it.
That swatch is from a sweater that ( I am pretty sure) came from a Vogue knitting in about 1992. Or abouts. It was a black and white two color sweater but I liked it better with three colors so it would look more woven and yes it does/did make me think of Barbara Walker. I was going through a mosaic phase then so that is why this one appealed to me I think.
I tried to get the correct number of balls to make the sweater but it was discontinued yarn even back then. Now I see it would have been like wearing armor it is so heavy and thick. But it is a great swatch eh?
Love,
Nancy
PS We are supposed to get 16 inches of snow this weekend. If we do it will be more snow than the last two years put together. So far nothing has started, but I will keep you posted.
More love,
N.

And here's Dad

Thanks for the picture of Mom. Har! How did she get her hair like that? So for equal time, here's Dad:

It was the first time he ever left home. Dad told me that the reason he and a friend enlisted was because they were doing poorly in a class, and heard that if they enlisted, they would get incompletes instead of failing grades. Such is the mind of a 19-year-old.

Besides that, I've been messing about with this: Aimee's snowflake hat pattern that I just took a
class in at Knit 'N Needle. It's so beautiful that I've been wearing it inside all evening, except when I took it off to put a tassel on. I've been told it will be even better when I block it, but I might not take it off until spring (real spring, not the March 21st spring.) I love this yarn - Berroco's ultra alpaca. It was very nice to work with - soft, springy, exactly what I like. I wonder what I shall do with what's left...I'm thinking about a Dancing Grannies hat....

And, speaking of patterns and stitches and stitch patterns, I wonder where you found the pattern for the swatch you posted a couple days past. It might have been from one of BW's books. And speaking of Barbara Walker, have you seen this awe-inspiring Walker Treasury blog? You'd best check it out! Signing out with a very warm head (I wonder if I shall wear it to bed?) Love, Mary

P.S. That reminds me, Dr. Seuss' birthday is coming up. md

Mom in 1945

Hi Mary,

I just thought I would like to put Mom in the blog. And since you made me scan in her WAC photo here she is.

I fed her and Dad Quesadillas tonight. I think it was the first time they had eaten them. They liked them so we might have that extemely difficult to cook food more often.

Love,

N.

Weekend plans go awry

Noooooo!

Darn it.

I did not get to Linden Hills Yarn this weekend. I had it all planned. Chanhassan Dinner Theater Friday night, knit on Saturday afternoon, Bluegrass concert with Jim Saturday night and chick flik with E on Sunday afternoon. But E screwed it up. Her planning was Chick flick with Nancy on Saturday and some stupid (my word) thing with friends on Sunday afternoon. So Saturday was spent watching Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant instead of knitting.

Hopefully next week.

And as a tip of the hat to your unfinished knitting I have a neat mosaic swatch from 1988. I will never make it. It is three strands on each row and is heavy as a brick. Probably wonderfully warm no matter how windy though. It is made with a discontinued yarn. Aarlen's Cristal. It is a very soft twist, almost roving. And of course there is not enough of one color to make the pattern. A good thing now, I know, although I was seduced by the color pattern. Sometimes not rushing to finish something lets you make the right decision.
Love,
Nancy

knitting around the house

Howdy Nancy,
I wonder if you made it to LH Yarns to knit again, yesterday? And how's the tax season going?
I've gone through my stuff to inventory the UFOs that I have lying around the house. I think that if I post them, somehow I'll become more accountable and perhaps even finish them. Of course I will finish them, won't I?
S0 this page will have lots of pictures. First - this is not a real project - it's an exploratory knit- up of a Barbara Walker lace pattern: candlelight. I hope to make a shawl with it someday.
Of course, this is as far as I got. I didn't even know that the pattern had been sitting on the coffee table at Mom's and Dad's until you found it for me at Thanksgiving! NEXT!

This is my set-up to make knotted yarn, using my music stand and the knitting noddy you gave me. This is the sequel to the mongol warrior hat yarn - that ancient silk/mohair paired with an old soft brown sheep. Fat and soft and really warm. Hat and mittens planned.







Oooooo, the hat I'm making in knitting class with Berocco alpaca is below. (I'm farther along thanthis shows.) This is what I've been spending most of my time on lately.













My Sally Melville Not-So-Warm coat, from this book. My god, it's only garter stitch, you'd think I'd get it over with but, no....

And below, Zeke's scarf. I bring this when I don't have something else to knit on that's mindless. He'll get it for Christmas some year....











Okay, here is the bane of my existence. No, that's not what I should call it. It's the project with the most guilt attached. Ol' Bear's gansey. I'm only showing the most interesting part, the aran-type cables that don't really belong on a gansey, but there they are. Because my loving husband doesn't know the difference between an aran and a gansey (and I didn't appreciate this either when he was telling me what he wanted, or else I would have convinced him otherwise), this is what we have. And as I'm designing this hybrid as we go along...and as I've never done this before...it seems to happen in fits and starts. Now, wouldn't it be nice if I finished this up in time for his birthday in May? I've actually got the body to the upper chest done, but now there's the sleeves to figure out and...I enjoy working on this so I think it's really going to be next...
...after the socks I have stashed away in the
mud room amongst the skate and ski gear.




And the snowflake hat, of course. Egad. May 23rd - well, I've got three months to work on that sweater. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....