Warming the Heart

Written 4/12/09

I finished knitting Walter’s sweater. I’ve been blocking the pieces so I can sew it up and put on neckband.It came out quite nice and with using Bulky weight Bernat Alpaka yarn it finished up fast.
My husband has been in the hospital lately, with a heart condition, and this has caused me to be in a knitting frenzy as the moment. With his particular kind of cancer, he is very sensitive to cold, being that his outer skin layer wants to dry out and flake off……..constantly. We don’t really appreciate what our skin does for us until we loose it. It provides our bodies with an insulating layer. When it is thin and exposed, air causes our skin to dry, feeling the cold weather or air more. This triggers a “shivering” response from the brain which sends the message to the body to get moving the muscles to warm it up. Well you get the idea. The heart also gets going faster, sometimes so fast, that it was quite worrisome to some of the nurses, in my husband’s case. So I have been knitting up leg warmers and arm warmers. I have a few skeins of a Valley Yarns Berkshire Bulky. It’s just a K2 P2 in the round pattern but I am hoping to just slip these on W whenever he starts to shiver.

As a temporary measure, until I can get these knitted up. I’ve finshed my Woodland Shawl. It is a lovely green in a leaf pattern made with Lisa Souza Alpaka/Wool lace weight yarn. It is so soft and warm, I just wrap it around any cold part and it warms up nicely. A little too feminine perhaps but when you’re cold and uncomfortable, you will do anything to get warm.

Another quick project I started to break up the monotony is the Ball Band Washcloth from Mason Dixon Knitting. I have always wanted to try this pattern. This is an amazing pattern. It reminds me of a brick wall. It is inspiring me to make other things with this pattern, i.e. flower pots, tissue paper covers, baskets, etc. I have alot of acrylic to use up.

Winter thoughts and knitting

The last few weeks have been spent trying to cope with my husband’s diagnosis and the news of the need for IV chemotherapy rather than a less invasive kind of treatment, which means that his present condition is much more serious than previously thought. I am grateful for the generous outpouring of love and emotional support offered from friends and family. Words cannot express how much this has held me up and encouraged me to forge ahead with whatever is to come.

My knitting has kept me company and calm while waiting with my husband for doctor’s visits and CT scans. I finished the Fibonacci moebius. We have had a spell of rainy, cooler weather and this has been very nice to wear. It is made with a wool/acrylic blend called Amity. It reminds me of a scarf worn by Hungarian ladies in winter or something you would see in Dr. Zhivago.
With the colder weather, I was inspired to pull out the UFO Woodland shawl. I love this leaf lace pattern. It is made with some Baby Alpaca/silk from Liza Sousa , which is very soft and lusciously warm. As my shawl grew longer and longer, I found myself wrapping it around my neck and shoulders as I knitted. I was about to run out of yarn when I realized the last 12 rows had a different pattern. I will need to rip it back a little so that I can have enough yarn to finish it. I had only purchased one skein but it was over 700 yds of fingering wt. I think this was my most extravagant purchase at $44 a skein, but it certainly was and is worth it. It is so wonderful to knit with and will be absolutely sumptuous to wear.

Since I am trying to stay with my New Years resolution of finishing a UFO before I started new project, I turned back to the Hey Teach sweater. This yarn is a yellow cotton. The lace pattern is very easy. I’ve almost finished the back of the sweater and will soon start the front sides. It is actually a cardigan and will be nice to wear with the warmer weather. I am wanting to knit some more hats. I have a friend who just recently under went some brain surgery and will be needing a hat. I need to start doing something with my handspun yarn and I think hats are a good way to use it up. Hats are quick projects and with the weather as it is, hats are always needed somewhere. My husband will be starting his chemo on Monday. I have no idea if he will lose his hair, what little there is, but as he has been very sensitive to cold lately, a hat will be something to help him stay warm.

Woodland Shawl

I am really enjoying knitting the Woodland Shawl in Liza Souza’s Alpaca Silk. Not only is it buttery soft and warm, the leaf pattern is relatively easy to memorize. For this aging person, with increasing memory loss, that’s saying something.

What is also amazing about this pattern is that it looks good on both sides. Some lace patterns are only beautiful on one side but this stitch is so amazingly genius that it shows a reverse of the pattern on the back side, making it a treasure to wear either way.
I am feeling that I picked the perfect color for fall. The color blend is mostly in olive with specks of yellow and orange and blue green that really make it seems like falling leaves as they just begin to change color in the fall. I have to admit that when I chose this yarn it was more because of the softness and the price (which seemed less than others), than the colors. I was hoping I could do something with it. It took me awhile to finally decide to purchase it at $44 a skein. Nevertheless,I took the plunge, planning to do something very special with this pricey yarn.

Knitting it up is going quickly on size 9 needles. I am hoping and praying, I will have enough yarn to make a decent size shawl. I hope my initial calculations are correct. Each pattern repeat is roughly less than 3” long, but it is very stretchy and will stretch to 4” by blocking if I need it too. So far, I’ve knitted 11 ½ inches.

An Early Start for a Fall Shawl

A lovely Easter with family. What fun was having a Easter egg hunt for my grandaughter. Here's some pictures of her in action.

My workmates loved the Easter baskets! They were very fun to make. I saw too late a little chick to knit, also. Well perhaps, next year.

I am on Spring Break! Yea! More time for knitting, spinning and what ever else I want to do.

I have started a new shawl. At the last TKGA Knit and Crochet show I stopped at the Liza Souza booth and fell in love with the lovely soft yarn. Though a little pricey, I was looking for a yarn for a “fall” Shawl and found some Baby Alpaca/Silk blend fingering wt in Olive tones. I purchased 7.2 oz/750 yards of 70% Alpaca/30% Silk. Since then, I have been looking for the perfect shawl “fall” pattern and finally found it from listening to “Lime and Violethttp://www.limenviolet.com/blog/index.php?paged=2”. Available free was the Woodland Shawl, a rectangle shawl that says that one ball of sock yarn will make a whole shawl. One ball of sock yarn is roughly 500 yds and I had 750 yards. For a larger sized woman I was hoping that would be enough.

Soo….I cast on in Size 6 Addi turbos. The yarn just slides off my needles. I tried to change to Size 6 bamboos but found it too tight, so went back to the Addi turbos. After one pattern repeat, I weighed my yarn and figure I would have enough yarn for
about 14 pattern repeats. It was a wonderful, easy-to-follow lace pattern, with a nice pattern definition of a spade-looking leaf. The only problem was that one pattern repeat was only two inches long, which would make the shawl only 28 inches, and would barely fall across my shoulders. This would not do. Below is the results on size 6.

I asked myself….what if I reduced the number width wise and used larger needles?. I ripped it all out and restarted. Using Size 9 Knit picks Harmony needles, I cast on. After one pattern repeat, the stitches were more open, airy, less defined pattern, but it was 3 inches per pattern repeat and it stretched 4”, which would make it wearable at 56 inches long. This would definitely cover my arms and wrap around my body. The airyness should not matter, because Alpaca is very warm. This is my results on Size 9.

The thing that I really want to do this week is hand dye yarn and fiber. I have been slowly accumulating the materials I need. I’ve never dyed with Procion MX acid dyes before and am hoping to give it a try. Most people I have talked to said this type of dye gives the best results. The only thing is the precautions one has to take is somewhat daughnting. Nevertheless, I’ve got my mask and goggles and gloves ready. I have been planning this for months and wanted to wait until I have a day or two without distractions. I’m not sure I understand all the chemicals involved to fix the dye, to allow dye to saturate better, to neutralize the dye. I’ll try to figure it out as I go.
I want to dye different fibers……cotton, wool, & mohair. Tonight I will try to get the fiber/yarn ready in skeins. I will try to “dye” tomorrow. Let’s hope it not literal.