I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

Interested in my forchette thumb but don’t have access to Principles of Knitting? I found a reference to the thumb in Mary Thomas’s Knitting Book. See what you can find when you look.

Don’t have Mary Thomas’s book? It’s easily purchased from Amazon or a big box book store. It was originally published in 1938 and the Dover reprint is an unabridged republication. Despite its age and brevity (and a disturbing reference to “coloured knitting” on page 113), it is shockingly comprehensive. Not the perfect substitute for Principles of Knitting, but definitely a port in the storm.

I’ve moved on from the mitts for now to focus on a new design. As you can see, the first attempt (at the top of the photo) was . . . shall we say . . . unsuccessful.

Well, I chose to head south, of course.  And, I have to say, it’s been nice to breathe relatively clean air the last two days.  Look, you can actually see the sky!

For those of you who asked, during the winter Salt Lake City often experiences something called a temperature inversion.  Basically, for reasons I don’t fully understand, the air near the ground becomes cooler than the air above. (The temperature is actually higher at the ski resorts than it is in the valley.) This traps pollution near the valley floor and it doesn’t clear out until we get a storm. Because we haven’t had a storm in weeks, the Salt Lake Valley is filled with polluted air that’s just sitting over the entire city. Yuck.

I live above the valley, near the foothills, and I usually escape the worst of the gunk. But the layer of smog has been rising rapidly and it finally overtook my house. So I escaped to the land of casinos and shopping.

But even where there’s sun and air, a girl can still enjoy knitting a thrummed mitten.

My crocheted Red Scarf is done and, you know what?  I like it!  Trust me, I would never send a scarf off to OFA unless it was something I’d wear myself.

Yarn: Cascade Ecological Wool
Hook: K (6.5mm)
Pattern: Work a 155-stitch chain foundation. Working back and forth lengthwise, sc in the back loop only until it’s wide enough.
Ravelry: Link to project page.

I soaked it in some Eucalan and then blocked it out to the finished measurements of 7″ x 70″

The stitch pattern reminds me of The Corrugator scarf.

I just need to make a tag, attach a fast-food gift card, and send it on it’s way. yay!

It’s been bitterly cold here the last few days. So cold, in fact, that my daughter actually asked if I had some mittens she could wear while driving to school.

More than two years ago, I made a pair of Mitered Mittens from yarn I dyed with tumeric. In September 2007, I blogged that they just needed the ends woven in. Guess what? December 2009 and I still hadn’t woven in the ends. They’ve been sitting on a corner of my desk FOR.TWO.YEARS!

Well, the ends are woven in now.  But when I turned the mittens inside out, I discovered that tumeric is not light fast. 

Here’s a post showing what the yarn looked like after it was dyed.

And here’s a post with a photo of the in-progress mitten.

Here’s what the mittens look like now:

Aaah, the power of the sun.