Sunday, January 13, 2008

Knitting, Stamping, L-Boxing

We're off to a Christening in Brooklyn today. You know what that means-I'll need to have some knitting for the car-



While I'll admit I'm back to drooling over pictures of socks being knitted on other peoples blogs already, I'm not ready to start knitting them again yet. Which is ok, I've had a barrage of mitten and fingerless glove patterns kicking around in my head for months. So these are the first ones I decided to start. EZ's Mitered Mittens from The Knitter's Almanac. The I-Cord border was a little tricky but I think it's really pretty. And I'm a little concerned about the upcoming Thumb-Trick which involves clipping a stitch and unraveling the knitting to expose live stitches. But I'm up for it. What's the worse that can happen right? It's not like I'm going to end up frogging 70 rows of a top-down raglan or anything like that...



Yep, this sweater looks mysteriously smaller this week doesn't it? After trying on what I had over and over and over and knitting more and re-calculating and knitting more and re-calculating it became clear that the v-neck I was working on was going to have the bottom of the 'v' positioned probably just slightly above my belly-button. I wanted an open v-neck true, but this was going to be obscene, tank top underneath or not. So to the frog pond I went and it's really ok. It was a relief in a strange way to see all the yarn balled up again, to see that it survived just fine and is all ready for me to take a second chance. It's not wasted knitting time lost-it's yarn forgiveness. A very Zen perspective isn't it?

I did have a lot more success making a rubber stamp this week.



In a former life I was big into making linoleum prints so this was a fun venture that felt very familiar to me. Lime and Violet started talking about Letterboxing in Episode 49 1/2 and I'm pretty intrigued. Basically you follow clues posted on the website to a planted 'letterbox' where you will find a stamp and a book. You stamp that stamp in your book and your stamp in the book in the box. It's a nice twist to a walk or a hike and becuase you get to use a compass it's just nerdy enough for me to give it a try. Chris was very, very intrigued and has already been out to find her first. I'm thinking next weekend I'm going to go out too and give my stamp a try.

4 comments:

Jodi said...

Those mittens are going to be great! The pattern's in my queue -- I'm probably going to use some Kureyon from the stash. The afterthought thumb freaks me out, too.

Lino prints are so much fun to make. I haven't done any years!

BEESTLYproducts said...

i've been wanting to make those mittens forever! i guess for now, i'll live vicariously through you. I can't wait to see how they turn out.
this letterboxing sounds like quite an intrigue.

lobstah said...

Ooh, I remember reading about letterboxing ages ago but had forgotten about it completely...it does sound like a lot of fun. Probably more fun come spring, though ;)

Octopus Knits said...

Happy new year!

The i-cord border does look great - those will be some nice mittens! Sounds like you made the right decision regarding the v-neck, and I love your stamp!