The Great Warming-Up, redux

Okay, we have a new date and time. Let's hope this one does not conflict with the scheduled arrival of any harlots or bunnies.

The Great Warming-Up is now scheduled for the Mid-Michigan Knitters' Guild meeting, on
Tuesday, April 17th. Nancy tells me that the official beginning is at 7, but get there at 6:30 for socializing. The meeting runs until 9. It's at the University Lutheran Church, on 1020 South Harrison Street in Lansing.

I still can't come (Amtrak schedule changes, grrr) but hope you all do!

Second Square

I sent a second square last Monday after touching base with our listmom the week before. This one is just a garter-stitch diagonal square, because I could just cast on and knit to fit. Unfortunately I ran out of yarn halfway across (I forgot how much yarn garter can slurp up) and so I did my famous semi-random yarn blending thing and it looks good with a second yarn on the second half with a bit of striping in the middle.

Fortunately, I'd already been doing some random stripes where I knit a very fine thick/thin handspun strand along with the main yarn. I think I spun this when I barely knew how to spin and it was definitely the first wool roving I ever dyed. It is a bit pinkish-purple and a bit bluish-purple, fairly pastel, and that worked really well to unify the two yarns. The first half (top right in photo) is WoolPak of New Zeeland 14 ply and the second half is Nashua Creative Focus wool/alpaca (left over from my first square). The WoolPak is dark blue-purple and the Nashua is a little lighter and more on the pink side of purple than the other. It also is a singles which reflects light a lot more than the darker yarn which is a multiple-ply yarn.

I expect that the square has "landed" safely by now and our listmom is no doubt very busy sewing together. Just in case she gets one more than needed, she has permission to hold my second one out. I already got one in and that's fine with me.

I have a square to spare

My second square is done and will be in the mail today. Pattern is from Beautiful Knitting Patterns by Gisela Klopper. Yarn is Heilo something or other, leftover from my Introduction to Aran cabled bag. I also knit this continental style, which is the third class of Sarah's I've taken so far.

Rats

This is what you get for using Outlook for all your calendaring needs. The eighth is Easter. Can't have that!

I'll talk to Nancy and see what we can come up with that's not, you know, on a major religious holiday.

The scene of the crime

I've been told that the book club meeting conflicts with the Yarn Harlot's visit to Ann Arbor--we can't have that.

So the new and, I hope, official date and time is now the Second Sunday knit-in at Woven Art. That's Sunday the 8th, 12-4, at Woven Art, 325B Grove Street, East Lansing. The phone number of the shop, if you have questions or need directions, is 517-203-4467; Nancy says there is free parking on Sundays across the street. I can't go, alas, but will be there in spirit--and hope you all take lots of pictures!

Remember, it's a surprise, so sally in all nonchalant-like, please...

: )

Just when you think it's safe to check the mail...

Two more squares!

That brings me to four extra squares, which means of course that I need two more so that I can do another row. I'm doing one and Cecilia is doing one that she is going to send me from Australia; if anyone has one that they could finish up quickly, I'd be happy to take it so I can seam and border and block some more instead of doing another square.

Tentative presentation date and time is Sunday, April 1, at 2 pm at Woven Art. (Hey, April Fool's!) Once the date is set--meaning, I am close enough to done to be sure I can have it there in time--I'll send out an email to the list (since only about 2/3 of the knitters are on this blog.)

And now, what you've all been waiting for...

Natural light!

Here's the best I could do of a whole-blanket shot, standing on the couch with my arms stretched waaay out. You can see most of it, along with the feet of the small person who is preventing me from doing this blanket much more quickly.

Half the blanket...

The other half...

And two as-yet-unphotographed-in-any-meaningful-way squares.

It looks as though I will not get enough squares to make another row; what I will do is seam and border in such a way that Sarah can add another row if she chooses to.

We're working on a time and place for the great presentation; it's looking as though it will be at Woven Art. Details TBA as soon as Nancy and I figure them out. I still have to do one more long seam and the border and the ends, which will take some time.

Math I did while seaming last night: 30 squares, times 4 sides, times 50 stitches picked up per side=6,000 stitches picked up.

In which I quit apologizing for the lousy photography and just post pictures already

Oh, this is awful. I have no idea who did which! I wrote the name on each envelope but now can't see it in the picture--gah!


Like I said, knitting I can do. Pictures...

Oh, wait. I said I wasn't going to apologize. All right, okay, here are the awful and uncredited pictures of lovely lovely squares for lovely lovely Sarah...
It looks like Cascade Quattro, and has very cute ladybug buttons that I have not let either of my kids touch. And was knit by... someone whose name begins with an M. Oh wait. If I expand the picture to fifty times its normal size I see that it was knit by the very talented... Marjorie!

Hey, I can see the name on that one plain as day! It's from Debbie!

And that's from Lynn H., who also included some of her very lovely sock yarn, which I'm hoping to use in the border...
I think that mystery-and-shadows square is from Erin, and apologize unreservedly if it's not... it's purple, it's beautiful, trust me for now and see evidence the next time it's sunny...
And I'm pretty sure that's the square from Eunice that must have come by way of Mexico, because it took two weeks to travel two states. Also purple, also beautiful, also underexposed.

I said I was going to stop apologizing, right?

The seaming, it is progressing, and I still have some feeling in my little finger so I can probably go pick up a few more billion stitches before I go to bed. See you later!

I must be out of my mind

But if I can get two more squares, I can get to 36. No, I didn't get any more in the mail... but I'm looking at those two orphan squares and thinking, oh no, those poor squares, how awful to be left out...

I have a half-done square that I can finish up, and I'll do something really really bulky for a second one. Does anyone else, um, have anything lying around that might work? See, the thing is that I'm going away for two weeks on April 1, and after that work will be crazy because I'll have so much to catch up on, so I really have to have this done and in the mail before I leave.

Anyone...? anyone...?

Seaming updates

I have 32 squares right now, which I'm seaming up in 5 rows of 6. If I get another 3 squares, I'll knit another square as fast as I can to make it 6 rows of 6; if not, I'll give the extras to Sarah to do with as she will.

All 30 squares are now seamed into rows. Because I hate sewing, I'm picking up 50 stitches per side of each square and knitting them together with a 3-needle bindoff. (My 100-cm Addis are coming in very handy here.) I'm using Lamb's Pride in Dark Charcoal--my all-time favorite all-purpose yarn. Two rows are seamed, and the stitches are picked up for the third, so by the time I go to bed tonight there should be just one row left to seam. Then the border, then the ends.

My square

I never posted information on my square, which you can see in posts below. It's dark, sort of spiral looking, and labeled with a green star-shaped tag.

The yarn is Pomfret, a retired sport weight from Brunswick. It's left over from my very first sweater (which means it's been in my stash for about 10 years), through which Sarah held my hand the entire time. I forget the color name, but it's, you know, purple. In fact, Sarah had finished a sweater in the very same yarn just before I knit mine. Now that I think of it, I may have even bought the yarn from her.

The pattern is from the first Great American Afghan, designed by Joan Schrouder (Knitter's Spring 1996). It's knit from the center, with 4 increases every round instead of 8 increases every other round. The increases are always in the same place instead of mirrored, and this gives the 'square' it's spiral vortex-like look. I swear it will look less wonky once you get it in place. I knit it with two strands held together, as I wanted to give it a bit more structural integrity.

Terri

Decisions

I could blog about the squares I just got, and the ones I sewed up last night...

or I could do some more sewing up.

I think I'll do some more sewing up. The crappy pictures are on my camera though; stay tuned.

Lookit!

A sunny day in the living room led to this...


And this...

And this...

And then the sun went down. And then the mailman came. And he brought us these!
Wow!!!

This is what I get for hiring non-union labor

So, you know my really cheap in-house mail opener? The one who is not quite three years old?

When we got all those envelopes on Friday (seven! seven envelopes!) he got a little, shall we say, enthusiastic. He opened each of them, one by one, under supervision, and I carefully put each square back in its envelope with whatever accompanying note. Then I put them on a shelf.

This morning, I discovered that he had opened them all. Again. Along with two envelopes from the day before. And stacked all the squares neatly on my dresser, with all the [identifying] packaging materials and notes dumped on the floor.

So now I'm trying to figure out whose is whose. I think it goes like this:

Diana: diagonal garter square in purple and white (Araucania?)
Pat: Noro cabled square
Michele: handspun alpaca with vertical ribs in the middle
Angie: two (two!) Trekking XXL squares
Anna: green openwork cables
Wendy: dark purple garter in what looks like Manos

This leaves me with a totally unidentified white Aran square (that one I know came without a return address, so I can't blame the mail opener) and a striped square knit from the center out. That one looks like half the stripes are handspun and the other half are commercially spun Aran-weight purple yarn.

Sigh. It occurred to me while trying to sort the mess out that probably Sarah would be able to pick out who knit what just like your second grade teacher could identify all the homework by the handwriting. Still, I'd like to get it right!

Right now I have 22 squares in hand, and I know of 2 more coming. If I get just one surprise, I'll be at 25!

Two More Squares

These two are headed out this afternoon!The top one is Crystal Palace Taos in Knitty's Lizard Ridge pattern.
The bottom one is Kathmandu Aran in a pattern from Barbra Walker.

Only problem... I seem to have deleted the email with the address on it. Can anyone help me?
~Rae
rach_2001 AT hotmail DOT com

Twenty!

I have twenty squares! And two more on the way that I know of?

Think there are another three coming that I don't know about, so that we can get to 25?

Here's hoping.

Sorry (again) about the appalling pictures. I'm hoping for some sun this weekend to do a slightly less awful job. But don't worry, Sarah will be sure to take better ones.

Speaking of Sarah, we have to give this to her sometime. I was thinking of a surprise presentation at a knit-in. Other ideas? I'm probably going to have to hear about it afterward, because I'm not in Lansing--but if anyone knows anyone planning a trip from here to there who'd like a passenger (the train schedule is hopeless, I tried) I might be able to swing it.

Off to seam. Stay tuned!

Now we are thirteen

Five more squares!

From Deirdre...

From Kathy...

From Terri...

This fabulously blocked item from Nancy...

And--hello! all the way from Australia, from Cecilia!