Quadrupeds

In my house, there are three cats who definitely help the knitting process. In fact, I don't think Knit Fix would have come about without the help of cats playing with a ball of yarn, dashing upstairs with it and ripping the knitting off my needles as they dashed. I'm laughing while figuring out how to fix the mess. It happened again last night when Oz was having way too much fun with a ball of Bonsai while I was working on a gift sweater. It's back on the needles now:

What's this, you're asking. Dog sweater? No, that comes later. Wait for it...
Stitch Diva Studio's Sahara sweater -- that's the pattern in the photo -- starts with a provisional cast-on, knits up to the shoulders (coilless orange pins) then down the front. After I try this on Rachel next week (wait for it...) for fit, then the two fronts combine and eventually the whole shebang is knit in the round. This is Berroco's Bonsai, which I'm in love with. It's rather like knitting with silk brocade. The photo here doesn't do it justice. I'm hoping that there will be enough yarn left over from Sahara to make a little something for moi. Maybe combined with another Bonsai color.

Now, as to why today's post is titled "Quadrupeds." My sister-in-law sent me two photos of the cats who operate her house. One actually has to do with knitting:

The caption: "Hey, there's a mistake in row 132."
Everyone's a critic.
But here's the photo that cracked me up:

"I'll have whiskey, straight up. Give the kid some milk."

All right, more knitting later. I have hopes to get my hands on some Berroco Seduce today to play with, if the nice UPS man comes through at String Theory.

Multitasking

Right now I should be working on character arcs for the novel. Instead I'm writing about knitting. Actually, I'm doing both at the same time. My husband tells me this is a peculiarly female ability, doing one thing that actually requires thought while mulling over something else in another part of the brain. I do tend to knit in front of the computer. Occasionally I even finish things.

This is honorary daughter (long story, another time, OK?) Emily wearing her holiday sweater. She picked out the pattern, yarn, button, I did the fairly mindless knitting.
It's made of Gedifra Lordana boucle, pattern from 1020 from their Highlights 072 book. Funny that 1950s styles are back in lately. In the past few weeks, I wandered through the local Nordstrom's and past windows of maybe ten other women's retailers on the way to the Apple Store too many times (another story, OK?) and saw a dozen sweaters for spring in exactly this flared shape. And I'll be knitting a sleeveless one called Flow for String Theory out of Nora Gaughan's new Berroco book in a new yarn called Seduce. If I'd titled this post Seduce, it would probably have landed on spam lists, no?

My last Nora Gaughan outing was this:

It's the Elodie shrug from Gaughan's first Berroco book, knit in Shibui sock yarn. Way comfortable. But if you want to knit it, check out the pattern corrections at the Berroco web site. There's a major oops in the lace set-up row. Kristen and I sent in a fix, which they posted immediately. Without the fix, when you do the final stitch drops for the lace pattern, every other one of them will unravel right through the ribbing, leaving it in tatters. Funny, on the page it looks like such a little tiny proofreading error, a misplaced YO in that one row. But there you are.

Finished the entrelac shrug out of Kureyon sock yarn, even wore it to the Apple Store yesterday (I was considering taking a mortgage out on one of their black stools at the tutoring table, but I think I'm done there for awhile). Also comfortable. The shrug, that is. Liked it so much that I've got another one in the works for spring made of non-wool Noro. It helps that I've taken to keeping a knitting journal where I note what I'm experimenting with, yarn, needles, and pattern directions if I'm making it up as I go along. Which I'm doing more and more these days, for no good reason that I can ascertain. I can actually tell you how I made the Kureyon sock shrug. Sometimes I just amaze myself. Anyone who has actually seen my office/studio is probably saying about now, "Who is this woman and what has she done with Lisa?"

“Often self-proclaimed” -- This part of the definition of maven is a hoot. I can buy into the specialized knowledge bit, and the “understanding” part I love. But what knitter knows everything?

I’m Lisa Kartus. I wrote Knit Fix: Problem-Solving for Knitters (Interweave, 2006). Knitters need to know how to navigate around potholes so they can travel into unexplored territory. Of course, planning ahead helps. Says the woman who started the above sweater as a stole and then just, well, kept knitting. I loved the way the colors were working together.

Or maybe I mostly love experimenting. Like this blog. For me it’s new technology. For all you experienced bloggers out there, no laughing, OK? I’m getting there. Someday I may even figure out how to give this page an entrelac background.

Besides this blog (and a novel I’m restructuring, but that’s another story entirely, pun intended) what I’m writing lately is a follow-up of sorts to Knit Fix. And I now have a partner in crime, Kristen Quain, who is to knitting approximately what Einstein was to physics. Hyperbole? Uh, no. I’m telling you, the lady is amazing. She thinks in numbers and geometry and stitches, all at once.

This is Kristen in her new haircut and her own sweater design. Oh, and she spun the yarn herself.



Now, what do you think of this?



It’s that new Kureyon sock yarn knit on #7 needles -- sort of fingering-weight open-weave entrelac. It’s about half the body of a shrug. Haven’t decided on the sleeve stitch yet.

All right, going to see what it’s like to publish a blog now. Well, just one more thing: today’s quote:

Hand knitting “Being a medium that is self-absorbing without being self-obsessed...”
from Knit Couture, by Gail Downey and Henry Conway, p. 9