Gotta Keep Me A Lifeline

When April noticed the Celtic Cable scarf I was working on, she mentioned and then showed me how to install a lifeline. What a lifesaver! I had made a mistake about six rows up from my lifeline, tried to fix it, could not, and simply ripped back to the lifeline to start again (and learned that I need to install a lifeline halfway through my repeat as well as at the end of one or watch a lot of work get ripped out! ;O))!

Thanks so much, April (and good luck with your first week of school)!

This past Sunday, I managed to join two other knitters at a local café. We’re considering a Sunday afternoon knit together to be a bit of a regular thing. Imagine my excitement and what a great time! Fibre was fondled, techniques and other knitting accessories discussed. One lady was using her brand new ball winder to wind, gasp, Malabrigo. She is right, it is like butter. It was my first time touching this fine, fine fibre. The other lady brought a pattern binder for us to pour over patterns. Sigh. It is so nice when you can get together with people who speak the same language.

One of the bits of information I passed on was the use of a lifeline which one of the ladies (like myself before April mentioned it to me) had never heard of before. I have to admit to not being the most confident knitter. Unlike others before me, I have never taught anyone to knit and I’m not sure that I could (but will certainly try when Iain gets a bit older). However, being able to pass on this little bit of knitting knowledge was a feel good situation for sure.

And, we can all use a few more feel good situations, can’t we?!?

What Projects Are In Your Knitting Bag?

I am shamelessly stealing an idea from Barbara’s blog. She posted about her ‘short attention span’ with a picture of her current WIPs. What a great idea!

Here are the WIPs in my knitting bag:

One Celtic Cable scarf, the second Fetching glove, and my Not-So-Shrunken cardie.

Now, I’m curious. What is in your knitting bag? Do you even have a knitting bag or am I the only one who carts around multiple projects in hopes that one of them will suit the occasion I’m attending? How many of you do things like bring knitting in your purse (like I did to the Wing Commanders Garden Party on Sunday) but do not take it out of because it just did not seem like ‘that kind of event’…whatever that is?

Come on! Curious minds (well, mine anyway) want to know!

Just Another Manic Monday

Don’t forget to add a comment to enter my 2nd blogiversary contest! See this post for details…

I mentioned that I’m really enjoying knitting the Celtic scarf, right? There’s something about cables that just makes me feel like ‘I can cable, therefore, I am’. It is very empowering.

I may not have been doing a lot of knitting over the past several months, I have been doing some knitting shopping. For example, I did take advantage of Knitpicks’ book sale recently. Into my hot little mail box came the following:

Inspired to Knit by Michele Rose Orne

A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting by Cat Bordhi and

Expectant Little Knits: Chic Designs for Moms to Be by Suzanne J. E. Tourtillott

I love them all. I am particularly enthralled with the Inspired to Knit book right now. All of the designs are gorgeous and many, many of them I would like to knit someday. And you, my fellow knitting bloggers, will be asked to help remind me of that every now and then.

Two sweaters in particular really speak to me. The Winter Wonderland sweater is, simply, divine. It is way more complicated than anything I’ve tried before. The yarn called for is Blue Sky Alapca’s 50% alpaca 50% merino hand dye. I haven’t felt it yet but it sounds as though you’d be wearing a cloud. This sweater will become a goal for me over the next couple of years. The other sweater that I adore is the Snowdrift cardigan. Although I would knit it longer (the pattern sits at about waist length), I adore the heavy, heavy cables in the sleeves and on the collar coupled with the smooth texture of stockinette stitch. Wow. This book has really blown me away. And those two patterns are just the start.

Yes, I really like the other two books as well. I’ll rave about them later this week, ‘K?

I’ve been knitting at the kitchen table as Iain naps. The window was open behind me (it’s got up to 27 degrees Celsius here today!) and I could hear the dry maple leaves blowing around behind me on the back deck. This sound always reminds me of Rivendell from The Lord of the Rings movies. In the scenes in The Two Towers when Arwen and Aragon are separated, there are lovely dry leaves blow around the Rivendell scenes, to intensify the metaphor of the ‘Fall (as in the season) of the Elves’ in Middle Earth. I would love to have a house where one wall opened up so that the leaves could blow through. I love that sound. I also love the fact that I’m able to knit a Celtic cable that reminds me of those movies. Yeah me!