Boise Lace Knitting Retreat

One of the great pleasures of the Boise Lace Knitting Retreat is seeing lovely work from so many talented knitters. This year was no different. Learning from the work of others is as important as the learning that takes place in the official classes. Below are only a few of the many stunning pieces.

Plenty of hand-dyed yarn was for sale, providing no end of temptation.

A group of Idaho artists also was meeting at the facility during our retreat. One was a talented beader, whose work earned many ooohs and aaaahs. She might even have persuaded a few knitters to add beading to their repertoires.

Doily with Spiral

I gave myself a break from the teeny-tiny thread for a doily in size 30. This is Doily with Spiral, a free pattern from Nurhanne's site.

Details:

• Thread: Cebelia size 30, approximately 210 yards
• Needles: 2.0mm for the first five rounds, 2.25mm for the remainder; I find that starting in a smaller needle size helps make for a tighter center
• Finished size: approximately 16 inches in diameter

This is a fairly easy pattern to knit, even though it isn't charted, with a stunning result.

I'm off to Boise, Idaho, next week for Myrna Stahman's lace knitting retreat. This is my fifth (I think) year to attend. I always come home with a head full of good ideas and new techniques. A whole week of lace knitting — what a luxury!

Brioche

As I may have mentioned before, my friend Nancy is not (yet) a knitter, but she is becoming fiber-conscious. On her last visit to Tucson, she brought back several beautiful skeins from Unique Designs by Kathy.

The challenge is to use the short yardage (88 yards, wool-llama blend, in this case) to show off the yarn. I ended up combining it with two skeins (107 yards per skein) of Jo Sharp 8-ply DK wool in a color called Owl.

I cast on 24 stitches and knit the Jo Sharp in brioche stitch for 29 rows. Then I used half of the Kathy wool-llama for 66 rows, followed by a whole lot more brioche in Jo Sharp; then 66 rows of Kathy and 29 rows of Jo Sharp. By weighing the yarn carefully, frequently and in grams, I was able to use up almost every inch.

The final size is about 6.25 inches by 67 inches.

The Journey Continues

I am moving closer to size 100 thread. Much closer.

The details:

• Pattern: Lavori Artistici #11, Design #38, 100 rounds
  
• Thread: Valdani Hand Dyed Variegated, Silver Foam, 35 wt. (somewhere in the size 70 to 80 neighborhood)
• Needles: 1.5mm
• Finished Size: Approximately 14 inches in diameter

Do the Puyallup

The Western Washington Fair has not used the "Do the Puyallup" theme for many years but I still think of going to the fair as doing the Puyallup. And I still like the "Do the Puyallup" song. Listen here (I prefer the country version). Today's sunny but not-too-hot weather made for a perfect fair day.

All of the knitting on display was stunning. I am glad that I am not a judge. I only wish there had been more entries. A lot of knitters live in Western Washington; it would be terrific to see their work on display. Hey, you knitters! Think about entering in 2009!

I won two blue ribbons in the lace section, one for a large doily and one for a small doily. The large doily is from the Kazuko Ichida (blue) book, knit in size 30 thread.

The small doily is from Lavori Artistici #11, in size 50 thread. (I did not mount it on the hoop; the fair display people did, but I kind of like it.)

I also won a third place for a man's vest and honorable mentions for a shawl and a scarf. Sorry, those photos did not turn out very well through the glass cases.

You can do it at a trot, you can do it at a gallop...do the Puyallup!

Party Lace

I seem to be alternating between doilies and scarves. Maybe the quick-to-knit scarves offset the attention needed for doilies.

In any case, this is the Party Lace Scarf from the departed MagKnits. MagKnits may be gone but, fortunately, the pattern is available on Ravelry. The yarn is one skein of Crystal Palace Kid Merino (240 yards), knit on US6 needles. The finished size is 7 inches by 58 inches. Each end has a row of 4mm turquoise crystal beads. I am fortunate that my local bead store, the Bead Factory, lets me "try on" beads, allowing me to string them on my yarn so I can see how things will look.

Nifty Fifty

My journey to size 100 thread continued with two doilies made with Flora size 50 on 2.00mm needles. This was my first venture to size 50.

The one below, which I knit first, is "Helen" from "Old World Treasures" by Gloria Penning. It has 73 rounds and finished at approximately 11 inches in diameter.

The second one is design #7 from Lavori Artistici #11. This one, at 63 rounds, is about 10 inches in diameter.

Getting started on size 50 was a bit of a challenge, but once I got going, it was just like knitting with larger thread.

Next: size 70-ish.

Nancy's Cocoon

Last summer we went to Oregon's Willamette Valley with our friends Nancy and Michael to drink a little wine and to visit Woodland Woolworks in Carlton. Nancy is not a knitter (yet?) but seemed to enjoy looking at the various yarns and colors. She was especially attracted to a ball of Misti alpaca lace. She might have been willing to keep it in the ball just for its softness, but I offered to knit a scarf for her. Maybe she chose the color because it complements the boat where she and Michael live? Michael took the picture (he likes photo credits).

• Yarn: Misti alpaca lace, 50 grams
• Pattern: Cocoon Lace by Evelyn Clark from Fiber Trends
  
• Needles: US4 (3.5 mm)
• Finished size: 8.5 inches x 68 inches
  

The next post will be about doilies. I promise.

Falling Water

I have been knitting scarves as a break between doilies. I love using sock yarn for scarves.

• Pattern: Falling Water Lace Scarf, a free pattern at the Blue Peninsula blog
  
• Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in Lapis
• Needles: US5
• Finished size: 6.5 inches x 76 inches

For those waiting for my doily march to size 100, stay tuned.

Interesting Yarn

You never know what a thrift store is going to yield. I don't know what I will do with this. I don't even know what it says. But I thought it was interesting and worth my dollar investment. Anyone read Japanese?

Back to Doilies

What with Tall Ships and the Museum of Glass, I haven't written much about knitting recently. But I have been knitting. I finished a doily, still in size 30, on my path to smaller numbers.

• Pattern: Anna Burda 1086 19A
• Thread: Clark's Big Ball size 30, color 26B, maybe half of the ball
  
• Needles: 2.25mm
• Finished size: Approximately 13 inches in diameter
  

I am currently working in size 50 thread on my way to size 100; stay tuned.

More Glass

The Museum of Glass offers the opportunity to see artists who are the best at what they do. This week it was Czech artists Jiri Harcuba and Petr Novotny (pardon the lack of diacritical marks; I don't think Blogger knows how to do that).

Harcuba is a master etcher. This week, he was etching on pieces made by Novotny and by the museum Hot Shop crew. He starts by making a drawing on paper, often a napkin, then uses a Sharpie to make the drawing on the glass. Then he etches the design on the glass. (It sounds a lot simpler than it is.) He works on a dozen pieces at the same time, going back and forth between different pieces.

Hot Shop visitors who sit in the front row of the gallery often have a chance to speak with the artist and ask questions, which is great fun.

In addition to making pieces for Harcuba to etch, Novotny (red shirt) made some of his own pieces. He called this one a "cage," although to me it looked like a basket or like this Knotted Openwork Scarf stitch — in glass.

He then had the Hot Shop crew make a gold bubble that was blown inside the cage to create a lining.

Watching glass being made is so interesting that I can't even knit while I watch.

Tall Ships

The place to be in Tacoma this weekend was the Tall Ships festival. I won two tickets to board all of the ships from a Port of Tacoma drawing. We aimed first for the "premium" ships, which was a smart move. We had only a 45-minute wait. (Lines for the Coast Guard ship Eagle and the "general class" ships was upwards of two hours at some times.)

The premium ships included the Merrie Ellen, Kaisei and HMS Bounty.

I was impressed with all of the ropes.

The Bounty — built for the 1960 movie "Mutiny on the Bounty" — was one of the more popular ships, especially the fully clothed figurehead.

Tacoma has a long history with shipping. On almost any day, you can see container ships, grain ships, power boats, tugboats, sailboats, kayaks and ferry boats. During Tall Ships, add traditionally rigged sailing ships.

Seeing red

I seem to be going a little doily crazy these days.

The details:

• Design #9 from Knitted Lace Designs in the "Modern" Mode by Kazuko Ichida
• Thread: Clark's Big Ball, size 30, color 126; thrift store find
• Finished weight: 24 grams, approximately 300 yards
  
• Needles: 2.25mm
• Finished size: 16 inches x 16 inches

This was a very easy pattern to follow; it didn't have any of the unfamiliar Japanese stitches.

And it looks very nice with my new George Burns rose.

Updates

Cables and lace
A few people asked where to buy Rene' Wells's All Seasons Stole cables and lace pattern. Linda's Knit 'n Stitch in Silverdale, Washington, carries the pattern. Follow the link for contact info.

Size 100 thread
I haven't decided what to do with this yet. Often I wait for the thread or yarn to tell me what it wants to be. Perhaps it will speak German and lead me to a Niebling or a Duchrow doily. In the meantime, I have some size 50 and some size 80 that I will work with so that when the 100 speaks, I'll be ready. I usually work in size 30, which makes the finer threads a challenge.

Vested Interests

My husband has a reputation among his students for his sweater vests, most of which I make for him. This is the latest.

It's a combination of the British School Slipover in Cheryl Oberle's Folk Vests, the vest template in Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns and the Office Vest from Lisa Knits.

• Yarn: Black Water Abbey 2-ply worsted in Bluestock; wonderful yarn to knit with, especially when cables are involved
• Needles: US5 for the body and US3 for the ribbings (yes, I'm a loose knitter)

World Wide Knit in Public Day

Our small group had a great time knitting in public at the Puyallup Farmers Market, in spite of chilly weather. We had a few visitors, and enjoyed our time at the market.

And fresh English peas were available, along with local asparagus and spring onions.

Knitting in Public

Tomorrow is World Wide Knit in Public Day. Members of the Puyallup Knitting Guild will hold an informal knit-in at the Puyallup Farmers Market in Pioneer Park, beginning mid-morning or thereabouts. Look for a group of talented knitters enjoying their craft. Stop by to knit or to talk about knitting. The market is a great place for plants, veggies, baked goods, arts and crafts.

Crazy

The Lacemakers of Puget Sound met at the University of Puget Sound last week. They had a market. The size 100 thread called my name. It said my name was Crazy.

I have never knit with thread this small. But it looks like I will.

Watching Glass

Watching someone knit can be kind of boring. (Don't misunderstand: I love knitting. But sometimes, just watching someone else knit can be a snooze.) But watching a master make glass — that's exciting.

For the past several months, Martin Blank (the guy in the red shirt, below) has been working at the Museum of Glass. He is creating a piece called Fluent Steps, an enormous piece made up of hundreds of glass pieces, for the museum's reflecting pool. Watching the team work is fascinating, especially because this artist appears to enjoy interacting with the people who are observing the work in progress.

Fluent Steps will be finished and installed in late October (I'll post pictures here). I'll enjoy the piece even more knowing that I watched some of it being made.

Cables and Lace

This project combined a pattern from a California designer with yarn from Prague, Czech Republic, in a color that is matches celadon that I purchased in Thailand.

The particulars:

• Pattern: All Seasons Stole by the talented Rene' E. Wells
  
• Yarn: Bambus, 100 percent bamboo from here (I don't speak Czech so I have no idea what this means), 100 grams, 320 meters; yarn consists of 5 loosely plied strands, each of the 5 consists of two tightly plied strands
  
• Needles: US5
  
• Finished size: 7 inches wide x 52 inches long

Just Like Grandma Used To Do

I am still working with some knitted lace edgings that belong to my friend Nancy. She figures they were made by her great-grandmother. The laces, which probably have been packed away for decades, are discolored.

I am cleaning them with a combination of Biz and the sun. The laces spend a few hours soaking in a Biz-water solution, followed by a good rinse. Then I place them on the grass in the sun for whitening. The laces dry beautifully and most of the discoloration is gone.

Laces aren't the only thing that enjoy the sun. Look at my poppies!

Where's Robin?

On December 1, 2007, I signed on for Paying It Forward. This was the deal:

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

Robin signed up, and I can't locate Robin. So if you are the Robin who signed up and you still want to participate, please leave a message and let me know how to contact you. Or contact me on Ravelry; look for SueV.

Alix Revisited

Last year I made a big, comfy Alix shawl (see my November 15, 2007, post). I love this shawl. I wear it all of the time. It's great with jeans and on those increasingly rare occasions when I wear dressy clothes. When I found some lovely Black Bunny Fibers laceweight left over from an earlier project it seemed that Alix was a good choice.

• Yarn: Black Bunny Fibers laceweight, approximately 60 grams (525 yards)
• Needles: US6/4mm
• Finished size: 28 inches center back

My red lace leaf maple is a good background, I think.

What the — ?

I usually do not have many negative public comments about patterns. Even if I don't like something, I can often see how someone else would like it. And many patterns that I would never wear look fabulous on other people.

But this sweater from Rowan 43 just seems — well, awful. Knitters work for years to avoid holes and the runner-looking things.

Obviously, I am not the target audience for this sort of thing, but I wonder who is. Why would you knit it on purpose? Why not just take an old sweater and cut holes in it?

Score (Again)!

$15. I hope I'm not using up all of my luck.

Score!

I love thrift stores, even though 99 times out of 100, I find nothing of interest. It's the 100th time that keeps me coming back. This week I hit the 100, finding this lovely stash of Knit Picks Palette. I count 16, maybe 17, full balls plus some extra bits. For $10.

Now the question is, what shall I knit?

Disappointment

I recently purchased a knitting book that I returned within 48 hours. Why? Because the punctuation, capitalization and typography choices in the book annoyed me to the point where I found the book unreadable and unusable. Perhaps my 35+ years as an editor and writer make me very picky about certain things, but if I am going to spend money on a book, I want to be able to read it. In editing, as in knitting, details matter.

So what's wrong with the book?

Punctuation: Commas and quotation marks are not supposed to be sprinkled on text like jimmies on ice cream. Punctuation helps the reader navigate and understand the message. Commas in the wrong places and quotation marks around words that do not need them create visual and mental speed bumps for the reader.

Capitalization: Initial capital letters are for proper nouns. You do not make a word more important by capitalizing the first letter of it. Unnecessary caps create more speed bumps. Further, capitalizing a whole word for emphasis is a typewriter convention. Today's text programs give you bold and italic for that purpose. Heck, even Blogger gives you bold and italic.

Typography: As noted, this book uses a lot of quotation marks — and they are all typewriter (straight) quotation marks instead of typographer's (smart, curly or book) quotation marks, creating more speed bumps for me. Bulleted lists are not lined up and the designer chose tiny, weak bullets that are more like floating periods that bullets.

I am not talking about typos or writing style. I'm talking about what appear to be deliberate design choices that, for me, do not enhance readability and actually detract from readability. On the positive side, the book offered some interesting history, some techniques I wanted to learn and some patterns. But, on balance, the negative aspects outweighed the positive, so the book went back to the vendor.

I am not naming the book, the author or the publisher. Other people will love this book, and I wish them all happiness with it.

Landscaping

No, not garden landscaping, but Evelyn Clark's Landscape scarf. I love this pattern; I've made it a dozen times with all kinds of yarn and all sorts of variations. This time it's Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock lightweight in a color called Gypsum, US6 needles. My variation on the pattern is to use only garter and stockinette for the sections.

Egeblad

Egeblad is a beautiful doily and great fun to knit, even if I don't have any blue flowers currently blooming to photograph it with. I changed the direction of some of the decreases, in particular, making centered double decreases in the center flower part.

The details:

• Thread: Cebelia, size 30, less than half of a 50-gram ball
  
• Needles: 2.25mm
• Finished size: 15 inches in diameter
  

Violets and Doilies

After I finished the yellow daffodil doily of the previous post, I started another variegated purple doily, which, coincidentally, complements the violets that are now blooming.

The particulars:

• Lavori Artistici #11, design #63
• Thread: Clark's Big Ball, size 30
• Needles: 2.25mm
• Finished size: 8.5 inches in diameter

Rhododendrons and camellias should start blooming next month.

Daffodils and Doilies

It rains a lot in the Pacific Northwest, especially in the spring. Day after day of rain. Or gray clouds threatening to rain. Fortunately, it's also the time of year when daffodils bloom. (Moss also, but that's another story.)

The daffodils made me think that I needed another yellow doily (see February 19 post). I had enough yellow thread left for this, which could be a daffodil. Sort of.

The particulars:

• Pattern: Lavori Artistici #11, design #11
• Needles: 2.25mm
• Finished size: 8 inches in diameter

Stork's Nest

I see no stork's nests on my rooftop or chimney, but one is in my scarf collection. It's Nancy Bush's Stork's Nest Scarf that was in the January/February issue of PieceWork magazine. The particulars:

• Stork's Nest Scarf by Nancy Bush
• Yarn: Misti Alpaca, 1 skein, in denim blue
  
• Needles: US4
• Finished size: 7 inches wide x 72 inches long

Waves, Shells and Peacocks

Every so often I decide to knit a doily with variegated thread, an idea that sends some people into spasm. I think that a good result is entirely likely if you match the thread and pattern properly. This one is Waves and Shells from Gloria Penning's "Knitted Heirloom Lace II." It's also design 5, Peacock, in Christine Duchrow's Leaflet 62.

The details:

• Thread: Clark's Big Ball, size 30
• Needles: 2.25mm
• Finished size: 13 inches in diameter